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COMIC HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 





























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. 

















































































BY 


0 



GILBERT ABBOTT A'BECKETT. 

i » 



Clio Instructin'? the Young British Lion in History. 


WITH TWENTY COLOURED ETCHINGS, AND TWO HUNDRED WOODCUTS. 

I 

7 9 * 

* * 

Me 

BY JOHN LEECH. 



PUBLISHED AT THE PUNCH OFFICE, 85, FLEET STREET. 

] 864. 















































































?‘'l “ 


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V> l 


PREFACE. 


-- ~ 

In commencing this work, the object of the Author was, 
as he stated in the Prospectus, to blend amusement with 
instruction, by serving up, in as palatable a shape as he 

could, the facts of English History. He pledged himself 

% 

not to sacrifice the substance to the seasoning; and though 
he has certainly been a little free in the use of his sauce, 
he hopes that he has not produced a mere hash on the 
present occasion. His object has been to furnish something 
which may be allowed to take its place as a standing dish 
at the library table, and which, though light, may not be found 
devoid of nutriment. That food is certainly not the most 
wholesome which is the heaviest and the least digestible. 

Though the original design of this History was only to 
place facts in an amusing light, without a sacrifice of fidelity, 
it is humbly presumed that truth has rather gained than 
lost by the mode of treatment that has been adopted. Persons 
and things, events and characters, have been deprived of 
their false colouring, by the plain and matter-of-fact spirit 
in which they have been approached by the writer of the 
“ Comic History of England.” He has never scrupled to 
take the liberty of tearing off the masks and fancy dresses 
of all who have hitherto been presented in disguise to the 



VI 


PREFACE. 

notice of posterity. Motives are treated in these pages as 
unceremoniously as men; and as the human disposition was 
much the same in former times as it is in the present day, 
it lias been judged by the rules of common sense, which are 
alike at every period. 

Some, who have been accustomed to look at History as a 
pageant, may think it a desecration to present it in a 
homely shape, divested of its gorgeous accessaries. Such 
persons as these will doubtless feel offended at finding the 
romance of history irreverently demolished, for the sake of 
mere reality. They will—perhaps honestly though errone¬ 
ously—accuse the author of a contempt for what is great and 
good; but the truth is, he has so much real respect for the 
great and good, that he is desirous of preventing the little 
*md bad from continuing to claim admiration upon false 
pretences. 


CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. 


BOOK I. 

l’AOE 

Chap. I. The Britons—the Romans—Invasion by Julius Caesar . . . i 

II. Invasion by the Romans under Claudius—Caractacus—Boadicea— 

Agricola—Galgacus— Severus—Vortigern calls in the Saxons . . 7 

III. The Saxons—The Heptarchy . . . . . . . .IS 

IV. The Union of the Heptarchy under Egbert . . . . . . 16 

V. The Danes—Alfred .......... 20 

VI. From King Edward the Elder to the Norman Conquest . . . 28 

VII. Edmond Ironsides — Canute — Harold Harefoot — Hardicanute — 

Edmond the Confessor—Harold—The Battle of Hastings . . 42 

BOOK II 

THE PERIOD FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF KING JOHN. 

Chap. I. William the Conqueror ... ..... 55 

II. William Rufus ........... 67 

III. Henry the First, surnamed Beauclerc . . . . . .75 

IV. Stephen.. 80 

V. Henry the Second, surnamed Plantagenet . . . . .84 

VI. Richard the First, surnamed Cceur de Lion.93 

VII. John, surnamed Sansterre, or Lackland .... . 102 








vm 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK III. 


THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE THIRD TO THE END OF THE REIGN 
OF RICHARD THE SECOND, A.D. 1216—1399. 

PA OR 


Ch ap. I. Henry the Third, surnamed of Winchester . 

II. Edward the First, surnamed Longshanks . * 

III. Edward the Second, surnamed of Caernarvon 
IY. Edward the Third ....... 

V. Richard the Second, surnamed of Bordeaux 
YI. On the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the People 


. 115 
. 129 
. 145 
. 154 
. 184 
. 20 ! 


BOOK IV. 

THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY IV. TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF 


RICHARD III., A.D. 1399-1485. 

Chap. I. Henry the Fourth, surnamed Bolingbrolce . . . . . . 207 

II. Henry the Fifth, surnamed of Monmouth.223 

IJI. Henry the Sixth, surnamed of Windsor.244 

IV. Henry the Sixth, surnamed of Windsor —contimoed .... 257 

V. Edward the Fourth . . 280 

VI. Edward the Fifth .......... 289 

VII. -Richard the Third . . . . . . . . . 297 

VIII. National Industry . . . .. .314 

IX. Of the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the People . .317 



CONTENTS OF VOL. II 


ROOK V. 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE SEVENTH TO THE END OK TnE REIGN 

OF ELIZABETH. 

PAGF 

Chap. I. Henry the Seventh.1 

II. Henry the Eighth.17 

III. Henry the Eighth —continued .29 

IV. Henry the Eighth —continued .44 

V. Henry the Eighth —concluded .61 

VI. Edward the Sixtli.80 

VII. Mary.88 

VIII. Elizabeth.101 

IX. Elizabeth —continued .109 

X. Elizabeth —concluded ..116 

BOOK VI. v 

FROM THE PERIOD OF THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION OF 

CHARLES II. 

Chap. I. James the First.125 

II. James the First —concluded .139 

III. Charles the First . . . ..154 

IV Chaides the First —continued .166 

V. Charles the First —concluded . 175 

VI. The Commonwealth . . . • . . . . . . 185 

VII. Richard Cromwell.202 

VIII. On the National Industry and the Literature, Manners, Customs, and 

Condition of the People. .205 



















X 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK VII. 

THE PERIOD FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. TO THE REVOLUTION. 

PAGK 

Chap. I. Charles the Second. 210 

II. Charles the Second— continued .221 

III. Charles the Second— concluded .229 

IV. James the Second . , . . , . . . . 241 

V. Literature, Science, Fine Arts, Manners, Customs, and Condition of 

the People.250 


BOOK VIII. 

THE PERIOD FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III. 

Chap. I. William and Mary.253 

II. William the Third . . . . . . . . . . 261 

III. Anne .... .270 

IV. George the First.279 

V. George the Second.. 290 

VI. George the Second— concluded .299 

VII. On the Constitution, Government and Laws, National Industry, 
Literature, Science, Fine Arts, Manners, Customs, and Condition of 
the People.. 










ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. 

* 

VOL. I. 


* I. The Landing of Julius C,esar. 

v 2. William the Conqueror inspecting the Volunteers previous 10 the 
Invasion of England. 

3. Terrific Combat between Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin. 

4. King John signing Magna Ciiarta. 

v 5. Edward’s Arm in the Hands of iiis Medical Advisers. 

V ^ Queen Philippa interceding with Edward III. for the Six Burgesses 
of Calais. 

v 7. Coronation of Henry IV. (from the best authorities.) 

8. Embarkation of Henry V. at Southampton, a.d. 1415. 

9. Marriage of Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou. 

10. The Battle of Bos worth Field: a Scene from the great Drama op 
History. 


b 








ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. 

VOL. II. 


TAGE 

]. Henry VIII. meeting Francis I.. . 1 

2. Henry VIII. and his Queen “ Out a-Mayjng”. 47 

3. Henry VIII. Monk-hunting. 69 

4. Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh. 114 

5. Discovery of Guido Fawkes by Suffolk and Monteagle . . .133 

6. “Take away that Bauble.” Cromwell dissolving the Long Par¬ 

liament . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 

7. The Royal Oak. The Penderell Family have no Idea where 

Charles is ! ! !.212 

8 . Evening Party—Time of Charles the Second ... . . 227 

9 . The Battle of the Boyne ......... 258 

10. Georgey Porgey the First going out for a ride in his State Coaciiy 

Poachy .288 






ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 


VOL. I. 


PAGE 

Druidical Remains ... 1 

Time Bowling out the Druids . . 2 

Caesar looking for the Pearls for 
which Britain was formerly cele- 
brated ..... 4 

Caesar receiving Intelligence of the 
Destruction of his Fleet . . 5 

Ancient Armed Briton ... 7 

Portrait of Julius Agricola . . 9 

The Emperor Severus leads his 
Army against the Northern Bar¬ 
barians . . . . .10 

Rowena and Vortigern . . 13 

Ida quitting his Kingdom . .15 

Initial I . . . . . 16 

“Non Angli sed Angeli forent si 
fuissent Christiani ” . . .17 

Battle between the Mercians and 
Egbert.— Cotton MS. . . . 19 

An Illuminated Letter . . .20 

Guthrum pays an Evening Visit to 

Alfred.' . 23 

Initial O ..... 28 
Edmund and Leof . . . . 29 

Coronation of Ethelred the Unready 33 
Settling the Bill . . . .36 

A Dane securing his Booty . . 37 

Soldier of the Period . . .38 

Thurkill’s little Account . . . 39 

Ethelred despatching a Letter by 

his Son.41 

a Flee, English ! dead is Edmond ! ” 43 

Canute performing on his favourite 

Instrument.45 

Canute reproving his Courtiers . 47 

A frightful Example. Death of 
Hardicanute . .49 


page 

Unpleasant Position of King Harold 52 
The Landing of William the Con¬ 
queror .53 

William refusing his Daughter to 

Edwin.58 

The Bishop of Durham . . . 63 

William departing for France . 65 

Initial W . . . . . 67 

Odo dismissed from Rochester Castle 68 
Robert Curt-hose trying to get a 


Bill discounted . . . .71 

Reading the Dream . . . . 73 

Flight of Sir Walter Tyrrel. Horse 
of the Period . . . .74 

The Great Seal of Henry I. . . 75 

The Effects of Extravagance . . 77 

King Stephen in Prison . . . 81 

A Clerical Weathercock . .82 

Initial H.84 

Henry II. dismissing the Foreign 
Barons . . . . .85 

Gilbert a Becket. Thomas k Becket 87 
Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond 90 
Initial R . . . . . . 93 

Blondel, the Minstrel under the 
walls of Richard’s Prison . .97 


Bertrand de Gourdon before Richard 100 
Arrival of Richard’s Legacy at 

Rouen.101 

Initial J . ... 102 

Prince Arthur requires his Grand¬ 
mother to surrender . ..104 

King John threatening to cut off the 
Noses of the Bishops . .. .106 

The Bishop of Beauvais capturing 

Salisbury.109 

John in a Passion . . .110 







XIV 


ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 


XI 


PAl)K 

Tail Piece.114 

Initial H.115 

The Earl of Chester interposing 
between Henry III. and Hubert 
de Burgh . . . . . 118 

Marriage of his most Gracious 
Majesty Henry III. and Eleanor 
of Provence . . . .123 

Initial E . . . . . . 129 

Edward and the Count of Chalons . 131 
Earl de Warenne producing his 
Title to the Commissioners . .133 

King Edward introducing his Son 
as Prince of Wales, to his newly 
acquired Subjects . . .135 

Portrait of William Wallace, from 
an old wood block . . ..138 

Tax Collecting in the reign of Ed¬ 
ward the First . . . .141 

Initial E.145 

Edward II. and his Favourite, Piers 

Gaveston.146 

Parley between Piers Gaveston and 
the Earl of Pembroke . . .148 

Edward II. resigning his Crown . 153 
Thomas of Rokeby receiving the 
honour of Knighthood . .156 

Edward pawning the Crown with 
the Archbishop of Treves . .161 

Edward’s Arrival at the Tower . 164 
Fancy Portrait of Inspector Baliol 165 
Madame de Montfort astonishing 
the French Fleet . . .167 

Assassination of Artaveldt the 

Brewer.169 

Edward III. on the morning of the 
Battle of Cressy . . .170 

Edward III. at the Battle of 

Cressy.172 

Origin of the Order of the Garter . 177 
Edward the Black Prince con¬ 
ducting his Prisoner . . .180 

Initial I.184 

Fancy Portrait of the Champion of 

England.185 

Richard thinks it high time he 
managed his own affairs . .190 

Henry of Bolingbroke and the Duke 
of York transacting business . 194 


PAGE 

Richard II. conducted a Prisoner to 
Chester . . . . 196 

A Pi’actical Joke. Deposition of 

Richard II.198 

Initial B.201 

; Anglo-Saxon Husbandman . .203 

Fox-hunting Bishop of the Period 205 

Initial T.207 

Entrance of Dymock the Champion, 
at the Coronation Banquet. .210 

Mr. Owen Glendower armed by his 
trusty clerk . . . . . 214 

Unseemly conduct of Henry, Prince 

of Wales.221 

Lord Mayor of the Period arresting 
a suspicious Twelfth-night Cha¬ 
racter .225 

Henry V. sends a friend to the 

Dauphin.229 

Henry inspecting his Troops before 
the Battle of Agincourt . . 232 

English Soldier securing a Prisoner 


at the Battle of Agincourt . . 235 

The Duke of Burgundy introducing 
Queen Isabella and her daughter 


to Henry V. . 

. . 238 

Initial H 

. 244 

Initial B . 

. . 257 

Joan at the walls of Paris 

. 258 

Joan trying it on 

. . 262 

The King of Sicily and his 

House- 

hold .... 

. 266 


Banishment of Suffolk . . .269 

Quarrel between Somerset and 
York . . . . .274 

Margaret of Anjou and her Child 
meeting the benevolent Robber . 277 

Initial E.280 

Edward IV. meeting Elizabeth 
Woodville . . ... 282 

Field of Battle (in a fog) near Bar- 

net .284 

Duke of Gloucester, disguised as 
a Policeman, discovering Lady 

Anne.285 

Cannon and Cannon-ball of the 

Period.288 

Initial H.289 

The Bishop of Ely presenting u 






XU 


ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 


xv 


PAGK 

Pottle of Strawberries to the 
Duke of Gloucester . . .291 

Arrest of Lord Hastings and Lord 

Stanley.292 

The Citizens offering the Crown to 
Richard ..... 295 

Initial R.297 

The Duke of Gloucester goes into 
mourning for his little Nephews 299 
Henry Tudor, Esq. . .301 


PAGB 

Richard III. and his celebrated 
charger, White Surrey . . .30” 

Coronation of Henry VII. on the 
Field of Battle . . . .310 

“Would Yorke like to go with his 
uncle Dick?” . . . . 312 

“ Ya-ah ! Macker—el!” William 
of Trumpingtoa, the Abbot of St. 
Alban’s , . . .315 

Initial N . . . . . . 317 




























ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 


VOL. II. 


PAGE 

Initial T . . ... 1 

Henry VII. taking a Chop with the 
Archbishop of Canterbury . . 2 

A You^g Pretender ... 5 

Perkin Warbeck and his Army . 10 

Henry VII. and Perkin Warbeck’s 

Wife .11 

Perkin Warbeck Reading his Con¬ 
fession . . . . .13 

Initial H . . . . . 17 

Henry VIII. and Catherine of 
Aragon . . . . .19 

Henry’s Tent . . . . . 21 

Henry pardoning the young Couple 25 
Initial A ..... 29 

Politeness of Francis to Henry . 30 

The Duke of Buckingham suspects 
that he is watched . . . . 32 

The Citizens of Bruges supplying 
Wolsey’s Suite with Provisions . 34 

Henry practising previous to chal¬ 
lenging Francis . . .36 

Election of Pope. Getting to the 
Top of the Pole . . . . 40 

Cardinal Wolsey at Boulogne . 45 

Henry answering “ Hear ! ” at the 
Trial of Queen Catherine . .48 

Cardinal Campeggio and Mr. Samp¬ 
son .—“ I can hear nothing now, 

Mr. Sampson.” . . . . 50 

Wolsey surrendering the Great 
Seal ...... 52 

Initial T.61 

Birth of the Princess Elizabeth . 62 

Henry is determined not to be 
bullied . . . . . 66 


PAGE 

Henry making love to Jane Seymour 67 

Delight of Henry at having a Son 

and Heir.69 

Henry wooing Catherine Parr . 75 

Shilling of Henry VIII. . . . 79 

Initial A.80 

English Archer of the Period, from 
such a rare old Print . . 81 

The Duke of Northumberland offers 
to fight any one of them . . 85 

Sir Thomas Wyatt surrendering to 
Sir Maurice Berkeley . . . 94 

Philip and Mary . . . .96 

Philip (of England and Spain) hears 
of his Wife’s Death . . . 99 

Initial T.101 

Honest Jack Tars of the Period . 104 
Lord Darnley . . . . 106 

Mary’s Elopement . . .111 

Lord Burleigh.113 

Initial T.125 

James I. on his Way to England . 126 
Flight of Rookwood . . ..135 

Guy Fawkes before and after the 

Torture.137 

Initial T . . . . . . 139 

Bacon, y c great Moral Philoso¬ 
pher. From a remarkably scarce 

Print.145 

King James disposingof Baronetcies 140 
King James rescued from the New 

River.147 

His Gracious Majesty Charles I. 

borrowing Money . . . . 157 

Fenton admits that he killed the 
Duke . . . . .160 






ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD 


xviii 

PAGE 

The Member for Huntingdon . . 161 

Initial T . . . . .166 

Something like Argument . .168 

Charles I. does not know which Way 
to turn . . . . .171 

Trained Band. Soldier of the 

Period.180 

The Barebones Parliament . .189 

Arrest of Wildman . . . . 194 

One of the Protector’s Tea-Par¬ 
ties .196 

One, Two, Three, and Under . 200 
Cromwell playing at Leap-frog with 
his Children . . . .201 

Initial C . . . . . . 202 

The Balance of Power . . . 208 

Charles II. . .... 210 

Charles driving the Mail . .221 

Charles is infoi’med of a Plot against 
his precious Life . . . . 224 

T. Oates, Esq. . . . 225 


m 

tage 

Noble Lord .—“ I believe I’m en¬ 
gaged to your La’ship for the 
next dance.” . . . . 228 

Arrest of Lord Howard of Escrick 233 
Judge Jeffreys .... 236 
The Merry Monarch . . . 240 

Initial T.—Titus Oates in the Pillory 241 
Great Seal of William and Mary . 253 
Awkward Mistake . . . . 255 

Initial W.261 

Captain Fisher doesn’t think he can 
do it at the Pi'ice . . . . 263 

William III. out Hunting . . 267 

Initial T . . . . . . 270 

Discovering of the Laws of Gravi¬ 
tation by Isaac Newton . .273 

Anne going to open Parliament . 277 
Initial I . . . . .279 

George I. putting on a Clean Collar 281 
The Blue Bonnets coming over the 
Boi’der . . . . . 293 



THE 


©omtc HHstcirj) of ISttglatifr* 


BOOK I. 

* 

CHAPTER THE FIRST 


THE BRITONS-THE ROMANS-INVASION BY JULIUS (LESAR. 

t lias always been the good 
fortune of the antiquarian who 
has busied himself upon the 
subject of our ancestors, that 
the total , darkness by which 
they are overshadowed, renders 
it impossible to detect the blun- 
derings of the antiquarian him¬ 
self, who has thus been allowed 
to grope about the dim twilight 
of the past, and entangle him¬ 
self among its cobwebs, without 
any light being thrown upon 
his errors. 

But while the antiquarians 
have experienced no obstruc¬ 
tion from others, they have 
managed to come into collision 
among themselves, and have 
knocked their heads together 
with considerable violence in the process of what they call exploring the 
dark ages of our early history. We are not unwilling to take a walk 
amid the monuments of antiquity, which we should be sorry to run 
against or tumble over for want of proper light; and we shall therefore 
only venture so far as we can have the assistance of the bull’s-eye of 
truth, rejecting altogether the allurements of the Will o’ the Wisp of 
mere probability It is not because former historians have gone head 

B 























































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


2 


[book 1. 


over heels into the gulf of conjecture, that we are to turn a desperate 
somersault after them.* 

The best materials for getting at the early history of a country are 
its coins, its architecture, and its manners. The Britons, however, had 
not yet converted the Britannia metal—for which their valour always 
made them conspicuous—into coins, while their architecture, to judge 
from the Druidical remains, was of the wicket style, consisting of two or 
three stones stuck upright in the earth, with another stone laid at the 
top of them; after the fashion with which all lovers of the game of 
cricket are of course familiar. As this is the only architectural assistance 
we are likely to obtain, w r e decline entering upon the subject through 
such a gate; or, to use an expression analogous to the pastime to which 
we have referred, we refuse to take our innings at such a wicket. We 



Time Bowling out the Druids. 


need hardly add, that in looking to the manners of our ancestors for 
enlightenment, we look utterly in vain, for there is no Druidical Chester¬ 
field to afford us any information upon the etiquette of that distant 
period. There is every reason to believe that our forefathers lived in an 
exceedingly rude state; and it is therefore perhaps as well that their 
manners—or rather their want of manners—should be buried in oblivion. 

It was formerly very generally believed that the first population of 
this country descended from iEneas, the performer of the most filial 


* Some _ historians tell ns that the most conclusive evidence of things that have 
happened is to be found in the reports of the Times. This source of information 

“i h0WeVC I’ ^ 0S f d 1 ag ^ nSt US ’ f ° r the Times unfortunately, had no reporters when these 
isles were first inhabited. 1 








































































































































CHAP. I.] 


ORIGIN OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS. 


3 


act of pick-a-back that ever was known; and that the earliest Britons 
were sprung from his grandson—one Brutus, who, preserving the 
family peculiarit3 r , came into this island on the shoulders of the people.* 
Hollinshed, that greatest of antiquarian gobemouches, has not only 
taken in the story we have just told, but has added a few of his own 
ingenious embellishments. He tells us that Brutus fell in with the 
posterity of the giant Albion, who was put to death by Hercules, whose 
buildings at Lambeth are the only existing proofs of his having ever 
resided in this country. 

Considering it unprofitable to dwell any longer on those points, about 
which all writers are at loggerheads, we come at once to that upon 
which they are all agreed, which is, that the first inhabitants were a 
tribe of Celt® from the Continent: that, in fact, the earliest Englishmen 
were all Frenchmen ; and that, however bitter and galling the fact may 
be, it is to Gaul that we owe our origin. We ought perhaps to mention 
that Csesar thinks our sea-ports were peopled by Belgic invaders, from 
Brussels, thus causing a sprinkling of Brussels sprouts among the 
native productions of England. 

The name of our country—Britannia—has also been the subject of 
ingenious speculation among the antiquarians. To sum up all their 
conjectures into one of our own, we think they have succeeded in 
dissolving the word Britannia into Brit, or Brick, and tan, which 
would seem to imply that the natives always behaved like bricks in 
tanning their enemies. The suggestion that the syllable tan, means 
tin, and that Britannia is synonymous with tin land, appears to be 
rather a modern notion, for it is only in later ages that Britannia has 
become emphatically the land of tin, or the country for making money 

The first inhabitants of the island lived by pasture, and not by trade. 
They as yet knew nothing of the till, but supported themselves by 
tillage. Their dress was picturesque rather than elegant. A book of 
truly British fashions would be a great curiosity in the present day, and 
we regret that we have no Petit Courier des Druides, or Celtic Belle 
Assemblee, to furnish figurines of the costume of the period. Skins, 
however, were much worn, for morning as well as for evening dress ; 
and it is probable that even at that early age ingenuity may have been 
exercised to suggest new patterns for cow cloaks and other varieties of 
the then prevailing articles of the wardrobe. 

The Druids, who were the priests, exercised great ascendancy over 
the people, and often claimed the spoils of war, together with other 
property, under the plea of offering up the proceeds as a sacrifice to 
the divinities. These treasures, however, were never accounted for; 

* The story of Brutus and the Trojans has been told in such a variety of ways, that it 
is difficult to make either head or tail of it. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Brutus 
found Britain deserted, except by a few giants—from which it is to be presumed that 
Brutus landed at Greenwich about the time of the fair. Perhaps the introduction of 
troy-weight into our arithmetic may be traced to the immigration of the Trojans, who 
were very likely to adopt the measures, and why not the weights—with which they had 
been familiar 

B $ 


4 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ^BOOK I 

and it is now too late for the historian to file, as it were, a bill in equity 
to inquire what has become of them. 

Caesar, who might have been so called from his readiness to seize 
upon everything, now turned his eyes and directed his arms upon Britain. 
According to some he was tempted by the expectation of finding pearls, 
which he hoped to get out of the oysters, and he therefore broke in upon 



Csesar looking for the Pearls for which Britain was formerly celebrated. 


the natives with considerable energy. Whatever may have been Caisar’s 
motives the fact is pretty well ascertained, that at about ten o’clock one 
fine morning in August—some say a quarter past—he reached the British 
coast with 12,000 infantry, packed in eighty vessels. He had left behind 
him the whole of his cavalry—the Roman horse-marines—who were 
detained by contrary winds on the other side of the sea, and though 
anxious to be in communication with their leader, they never could get 
into the right channel. At about three in the afternoon, Caesar having 
taken an early dinner, began to disembark his forces at a spot called to 
this day the Sandwich Flats, from the people having been such flats as 
to allow the enemy to effect a landing. While the Roman soldiers 
were standing shilly-shallying at the side of their vessels, a standard- 
bearer of the tenth legion, or, as we should call him, an ensign in the 
tenth, jumped into the water, which was nearly up to his knees, and 
addressing a claptrap to his comrades as he stood in the sea, completely 
turned the tide m Caesar’s favour. After a severe shindy on the shingles, 






































































CIIAP. I.] 


INVASION BY JULIUS CAESAR. 


5 


the Britons withdrew, leaving the Romans masters of the beach, where 
Caesar erected a marquee for the accommodation of his cohorts. The 
natives sought and obtained peace, which had no sooner been concluded, 
than the Roman horse-marines were seen riding across the Channel. A 
tempest, however, arising, the horses were terrified, and the waves begin¬ 
ning to mount, added so much to the confusion, that the Roman cavalry 
were compelled to back to the point they started from. The same storm 
gave a severe blow to the camp of Caesar, on the beach, dashing his gal 
leys and transports against the rocks which they were sure to split upon 
Daunted by these disasters, the invaders, after a few breezes with the 
Britons, took advantage of a favourable gale to return to Gaul, and thus 
for a time the dispute appeared to have blown over. 

Caesar’s thoughts, however, still continued to run in one, namely, 
the British, Channel. In the spring of the ensuing year, he rigged out 
800 ships, into which he contrived to cram 32,000 men, and with 
this force he was permitted to land a second time by those horrid 
flats at Sandwich. The Britons for some time made an obstinate 
resistance in their chariots, but they ultimately took a fly across the 
country, and retreated with great rapidity. Caesar had scarcely sat 
down to breakfast the next morning when he heard that a tempest had 
wrecked all his vessels. At this intelligence he burst into tears, and 



Caesar receiving Intelligente of the Destruction of his Fleet. 








































































































































































































































6 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


I BOOK I. 


scampered off to the sea coast, with all his legions in full cry, hurrying 
after him. 

' The news of the disaster turned out to be no exaggeration, for there 
were no penny-a-liners in those days; and, having carried his ships a 
good way inland, where they remained like fish out of water, he set 
out once more in pursuit of the enemy. The Britons had, however, 
made the most of their time, and had found a leader in the person of 
Cassivelaunus, alias Caswallon, a quarrelsome old Celt, who had so 
frequently thrashed his neighbours, that he was thought the most likely 
person to succeed in thrashing the Romans. This gallant individual 
was successful in a few rough off handed engagements; but when it came 
to the fancy work, where tactics were required, the disciplined Roman 
troops were more than a match for him. His soldiers having been 
driven back to their woods, he drove himself back in his chariot to the 
neighbourhood of Chertsey, where he had a few acres of ground, which 
he called a Kingdom. He then stuck some wooden posts in the middle 
of the Thames, as an impediment to Caesar, who, in the plenitude of 
his vaulting ambition, laid his hands on the posts and vaulted over 
them. 

The army of Cassivelaunus being now disbanded, his establishment 
was reduced to 4000 chariots, which he kept up for the purpose of 
harassing the Romans. As each chariot required at least a pair of 
horses, his 4000 vehicles, and the enormous stud they entailed, must 
have been rather more harassing to Cassivelaunus himself than to the 
enemy. 

This extremely extravagant Celt, who had long been the object of the 
jealousy of his neighbours, was now threatened by their treachery. 
The chief of the Trinobantes, who lived in Middlesex, and were per¬ 
haps the earliest Middlesex magistrates, sent ambassadors to Caesar, 
promising submission. They also showed him the way to the con¬ 
temptible cluster of houses which Cassivelaunus dignified with the 
name of his capital. It was surrounded with a ditch, and a rampart 
made chiefly of mud, the article in which military engineering seemed 
to have stuck at that early period. Cassivelaunus was driven by Caesar 
from his abode, constructed of clay and felled trees, and so precipitate 
was the flight of the Briton, that he had only time to pack up a few 
necessary articles, leaving everything else to fall into the hands of the 
enemy. 

The Roman General, being tired of his British campaign, was glad 
to listen to the overtures of Cassivelaunus; but these overtures con¬ 
sisted of promissory notes, which were never realised. The Celt 
undertook to transmit an annual tribute to Caesar, who never got a 
penny of the money; and the hostages he had carried with him to Gaul 
became a positive burden to him, for they were never taken out of 
pawn by their countrymen. It is believed that they were ultimately 
got rid of at a sale of unredeemed pledges, where they were put up in 
lots of half a dozen, and knocked down as slaves to the highest bidder. 


CHAP. II.] INVASION BY THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS. 7 

Before quitting the subject of Caesar’s invasion, it may be interesting 
to the reader to know something of the weapons with which the early 
Britons attempted to defend them¬ 
selves. Their swords were made of 
copper, and generally bent with the 
first blow, which must have greatly 
straitened their aggressive resources, 
for the swords thus followed their own 
cent, instead of carrying out the in¬ 
tentions of the persons using them. 

This provoking pliancy of the material 
must often have made the soldier as 
ill-tempered as his own weapon. The 
Britons carried also a dirk, and a spear, 
the latter of which they threw at the 
foe, as an effectual means of pitching 
into him. A sort of reaping-hook was 
attached to their chariot wheels, and was often very useful in reaping 
the laurels of victory. 

For nearly one hundred years after Caesar’s invasion, Britain was un 
disturbed by the Homans, though Caligula, that neck-or-nothing tyrant, 
as his celebrated wish entitles him to be called, once or twice had his 
eye upon it. The island, however, if it attracted the Imperial eye, 
escaped the lash, during the period specified. 



Ancient Armed Briton. 


CHAPTER THE SECOND. 

INVASION BY THE ROMANS UNDER CLAUDIUS-CARACTACUS-BOADICEA- 

AGRICOLA-GALGACUS-SEVERUS-VORTIGERN CALLS IN THE SAXONS. 

It was not until ninety-seven years after Caesar had seized upon the island 
that it was unceremoniously clawed by the Emperor Claudius. Kent and 
Middlesex fell an easy prey to the Roman power; nor did the brawny 
sons of Canterbury—since so famous for its brawn—succeed in repelling 
the enemy. Aulus Plautius, the Roman general, pursued the Britons 
under that illustrious character, Caractacus. He retreated towards 
Lambeth Marsh, and the swampy nature of the ground gave the invaders 
reason to feel that it was somewhat too 

“ Far into the bowels of the land 
They had inarch’d on without impediment.” 

Vespasian, the second in command, made a tour in the Isle oi 
Wicrht, then called Vectis, where he boldly took the Bull by the horns, 
and seized upon Cowes with considerable energy. Still, little was done till 






8 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book 1. 


Ostorius Scapula—whose name implies that he was a sharp blade— 
put his shoulder to the wheel, and erected a line of defences—a line in 
which he was so successful that it may have been called his peculiar 
forte —to protect the territory that had been acquired. 

After a series of successes, Ostorius having suffocated every breath of 
liberty in Suffolk, and hauled the inhabitants of Newcastle over the 
coals, drove the people of Wales before him like so many Welsh rabbits; 
and even the brave Caractacus was obliged to fly as well as he could, 
with the remains of one of the wings of the British army. He was 
taken to Home with his wife and children, in fetters, but his dignified 
conduct procured his chains to be struck off, and from this moment we 
lose the chain of his histoiy. 

Ostorius, who remained in Britain, was so harassed by the natives, 
that he was literally worried to death; but in the reign of Nero, (a.d. 
59,) Suetonius fell upon Mona, now the Isle of Anglesey, where the 
howlings, cries, and execrations of the people were so awful, that the 
name of Mona was singularly appropriate. Notwithstanding, however, 
the terrific oaths of the natives, they could not succeed in swearing 
away the lives of their aggressors. Suetonius, having made them pay 
the penalty of so much bad language, was called up to London, then a 
Roman colony; but he had no sooner arrived in town, than he was 
obliged to include himself among the departures, in consequence of the 
fury of Boadicea, that greatest of viragoes and first of British heroines. 
She reduced London to ashes, which Suetonius did not stay to sift; but 
he waited the attack of Boadicea a little way out of town, and pitched 
his tent within a modern omnibus ride of the great metropolis. His 
fair antagonist drove after him in her chariot, with her two daughters, 
the Misses Boadicea, at her side, and addressed to her army some of 
those appeals on behalf of “ a British female in distress,” which have 
since been adopted by British dramatists. The valorous old vixen was, 
however, defeated ; and rather than swallow the bitter pill which would 
have poisoned the remainder of her days, she took a single dose and 
terminated her own existence. 

Suetonius soon returned with his suite to the Continent, without having 
finished the war; for it was always a characteristic of the Britons, that 
they never would acknowledge they had had enough at the hands of an 
enemy. Some little time afterwards, we find Cerealis engaged in one of 
those attacks upon Britain which might be called serials, from their 
frequent repetition; and subsequently, about the year 75 or 78, Julius 
Frontinus succeeded to the business from which so many before him 
had retired with very little profit. 

The general, however, who cemented the power of Rome—or, to speak 
figuratively, introduced the Roman cement among the Bricks or Britons 
—was Julius Agricola, the father-in-lav/ of Tacitus, the historian, who 
has lost no opportunity of puffing most outrageously his undoubtedly 
meritorious relative. 

Agricola certainly did considerable havoc in Britain. He sent the 


CHAr. II.] 


JULIUS AGRICOLA-HADRIAN-SEVERUS 


9 


Scotch reeling over the Grampian Hills, and led the Caledonians a 
pretty dance. He ran up a kind of rampart between the Friths of Clyde 
and Forth, from which he could come 
forth at his leisure and complete the 
conquest of Caledonia. In the sixth 
year of his campaign, a.d. 83, he 
crossed the Frith of Forth, and came 
opposite to Fife, which was played 
upon by the whole of his band with 
considerable energy. Having wintered 
in Fife, upon which he levied contri¬ 
butions to a pretty tune, he moved 
forward in the summer of the next 
year, a.d. 84, from Glen Devon to 
the foot of the Grampians. He here 
encountered Galgacus and his host, 
who made a gallant resistance; but 
the Scottish chief was soon left to 
reckon without his host, for all his 
followers fled like lightning, and it 
has been said that their bolting came 
upon him like a thunderbolt. 

Agricola having thoroughly beaten 
perhaps, that there is nothing so impressible as wax—began to think of 
instructing them. He had given them a few lessons in war which they 
were not likely to forget, and he now thought of introducing among 
their chiefs a tincture of polite letters, commencing of course with the 
alphabet. The Britons finding it as easy as A, B, C, began to cultivate 
the rudiments of learning, for there is a spell in letters of which few 
can resist the influence. They assumed the toga, which, on account of 
the comfortable warmth of the material, they very quickly cottoned ; they 
plunged into baths, and threw themselves into the capacious lap of luxury 

For upwards of thirty years Britain remained tranquil, but in the 
reign of Hadrian, a.d. 120, the Caledonians, whose spirit had been 
“scotched, not killed,” became exceedingly turbulent. Hadrian, who 
felt his weakness, went to the wall of Agricola,* which was rebuilt in 
order to protect the territory the Romans had acquired. Some years 
afterwards the power of the empire went into a decline, which caused 
a consumption at home of many of the troops that had been previously 
kept for the protection of foreign possessions. Britain took this oppor¬ 
tunity of revolting, and in the year 207, the Emperor Severus, though 
far advanced in years and a martyr to the gout, determined to march 
in person against the barbarians. He had no sooner set his foot on 

* The remains of this wall are still in existence, to furnish food for the Archeologians 
who occasionally feast on the blacks, which have become venerable with the crust of ages. 
A morning roll among the mounds in the neighbourhood where this famous wall once 
existed, is considered a most delicate repast to the antiquarian. 



Portrait of Julius Agricola, 


the Britons—on the principle, 


10 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I. 


English ground than his gout caused him to feel the greatest difficulties 
at every step, and having been no less than four years getting to York, 



The Emperor Severus leads his Army against the Northern Barbarians. 


he knocked up there, a.d. 211, and died in a dreadful hobble. Cara- 
calla, son and successor to the late Emperor Severus, executed a sur¬ 
render of land to the Caledonians for the sake of peace, and being desi¬ 
rous of administering to the effects of his lamented governor in Rome, 
left the island for ever. 

The history of Britain for the next seventy years may be easily 
written, for a blank page would tell all that is known respecting it. 
In the partnership reign of Dioclesian and Maximian, a.d. 288, “the 
land we live in ” turns up again, under somewhat unfavourable circum¬ 
stances, for we find its coasts being ravaged about this time by Scandi¬ 
navian and Saxon pirates. Carausius, a sea captain, and either a 
Belgian or Briton by birth, was employed against the pirates, to whom, 
in the Baltic sound, he gave a sound thrashing. Instead, however, of 
















































































CHAP. II.] BRITAIN A PREY TO NEIGHBOURING PIRATES. 11 

sending the plunder home to his employers, he pocketed the proceeds 
of his own victories, and the Emperors, growing jealous of his power, 
sent instructions to have him slain at the earliest convenience. The 
wily sailor, however, fled to Britain, where he planted his standard, 
and where the tar, claiming the natives as his “messmates” induced 
them to join him in the mess he had got into. The Roman eagles were 
put to flight, and both wings of the imperial army exhibited the white 
feather. Peace with Carausius was purchased by conceding to him 
the government of Britain and Boulogne, with, the proud title of 
Emperor. 

The assumption of the rank of Emperor of Boulogne seems to us 
about as absurd as usurping the throne of Broadstairs, or putting on the 
imperial purple at Herne Bay; but Carausius having been originally a 
mere pirate, was justly proud of his new dignity. Having swept the 
seas, he commenced scouring the country, and his victories were cele¬ 
brated by a day’s chairing, at which he assisted as the principal figure 
in a procession of unexampled pomp and pageantry. The throne, 
however, is not an easy fauteuil, and Carausius had scarcely had time to 
throw himself back in an attitude of repose, when he was murdered at 
Eboracum (York), (a.d. 297,) by one Alectus, his confidential friend and 
minister. In accordance with the custom of the period, that the mur¬ 
derer should succeed his victim, Alectus ruled in Britain until he, in 
his turn, was slain at the instigation of Constantius Chlorus, who became 
master of the island That individual died at York (a.d. 306), where 
his son Constantine, afterwards called the Great, commenced his reign, 
which was a short and not a particularly merry one, for after experiencing 
several reverses in the North, he quitted the island, which, until his 
death in 337, once more enjoyed tranquillity. 

Rome, which had so long been mighty, was like a cheese in the same 
condition, rapidly going to decay, and she found it necessary to practise 
what has been termed “ the noble art of self-defence,” which is admitted 
on all hands to be the first law of Nature. Britain they regarded as a 
province, which it was not their province to look after. It was conse¬ 
quently left as pickings for the Piets, * nor did it come off scot free from 
the Scots, who were a tribe of Celtse from Ireland, and who conse¬ 
quently must be regarded as a mixed race of Gallo-Hibernian Cale 
donians. They had, in fact, been Irishmen before they had been 
Scotchmen, and Frenchmen previous to either. Such were the transla¬ 
tions that occurred even at that early period in the greatest drama of all 
-—the drama of history. 

Britain continued for years suspended like a white hart—a simile 
justified by its constant trepidation and alarm—with which the Romans 
and others might enjoy an occasional game at bob-cherry. Maximus 
(a.d. 382) made a successful bite at it, but turning aside in search of 

* “ The Piets,” says Dr. Henry, “ were so called from Pictich, a plunderer, and not 
from picti, painted.” History, in assigning the latter origin to their name, has failed to 
exhibit them in their true colours. 


12 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I. 


the fruits of ambition elsewhere, the Soots and Piets again began nibbling 
at the Bigaroon that had been the subject of so much snappishness. 

The Britons being shortly afterwards left once more to themselves, 
elected Marcus as their sovereign, (a.d. 40T); but monarclis in those 
days, were set up like the king at skittles, only to be knocked down 
again. Marcus was accordingly bowled out of existence by those who had 
raised him; and one, Gratian, having succeeded to the post of royal 
ninepin, was in four months as dead as the article to which we have chosen 
to compare him. After a few more similar ups and downs, the Romans, 
about the year 420, nearly five centuries after Csesar’s firs tp invasion, 
finally cried quits with the Britons by abandoning the island. 

In pursuing his labours over the few ensuing years, the author would 
be obliged to grope in the dark; but history is not a game at blind-man’s- 
buff, and we will never condescend to make it so. It is true, that with 
the handkerchief of obscurity bandaging our eyes, we might turn round 
in a state of rigmarole, and catch what we can; but as it would be 
mere guesswork by which we could describe the object of which we 
should happen to lay hold, we will not attempt the experiment. 

It is unquestionable that Britain was a prey to dissensions at home 
and ravages from abroad, while every kind of faction—except satis 
faction—was rife within the island. 

Such was the misery of the inhabitants, that they published a 
pamphlet called “The Groans of the Britons,” (a.d. 441), in which 
they invited iEtius, the Roman consul, to come over and turn out 
the barbarians, between whom and the sea, the islanders were 
tossed like a shuttlecock knocked about by a pair of battledores. 
iEtius, in consequence of previous engagements with Attila and others,' 
was compelled to decline the invitation, and the Britons therefore had 
a series of routs, which were unattended by the Roman cohorts. 

The southern part of the island was now torn between a Roman 
faction under Aurelius Ambrosius, and a British or “country party,” at 
the head of which was Vortigem. The latter is said to have called in 
the Saxons; and it is certain that (a.d. 449) he hailed the two brothers, 
Hengist and Horsa, * who were cruising as Saxon pirates in the British 
Channel. These individuals being ready for any desperate job, 
accepted the invitation of Vortigem, to pass some time with him in the 
Isle of Thanet. They were received as guests by the people of 
Sandwich, who would as soon have thought of quarreling with their 
bread and butter as with the friends of the gallant Vortigem. From 
this date commences the Saxon period of the history of Britain. 

* Horsa, means a horse ; and the white horse, even now, appears as the ensign of Kent 
as it once did on the shield of the Saxons. It is probable that when Horsa came to 
London, he may have put up somewhere near the present site of the White Horse Cellar. 
Vide “ Palgrave’s Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth.” 


CIJAP. III.] 


THE SAXONS-THE HEPTARCHY 


13 


CHAPTER THE THIRD. 

THE SAXONS-THE HEPTARCHY. 

In obedience to custom, the etymologists have been busy with the 
word Saxon, which they have derived from seax, a sword, and we are 
left to draw the inference that the Saxons were very sharp blades; a 
presumption that is fully sustained by their fierce and warlike character. 
Their chief weapons were a battleaxe and a hammer, in the use of which 
they were so adroit that they could always hit the right nail upon the 
head, when occasion required. Their shipping had been formerly 
exceedingly crazy, and indeed the crews must have been crazy to have 
trusted themselves in such fragile vessels. The bottoms of the boats 
were of very light timber, and the sides consisted of wicker, so that the 
fleet must have combined the strength of the washing-tub with the 
elegant lightness of the clothes’ basket. Like their neighbours the 
wise men of Gotham, or Gotha, who went to sea in a bowl, the Saxons 
had not scrupled to commit themselves to the mercy of the waves, in 
these unsubstantial cockle-shells. The boatbuilders, however, soon 
took rapid strides, and improved their craft by mechanical cunning. 

Another fog now comes over the historian, but the gas of sagacity is 
very useful in dispelling the clouds of obscurity. It is said that 
Hengist gave an evening party to Vortigem, who fell in love with 



Rowena and Vortigern. 


















































































14 


COMTG HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK i. 


Rowena, the daughter of his host—a sad flirt, who, throwing herself on 
her knee, presented the wine-cup to the king, wishing him, in a neat 
speech, all health and happiness. Vortigern’s head was completely 
turned by the beauty of Miss Rowena Hengist, and the strength of the 
beverage she had so bewitchingly offered him. 

A story is also told of a Saxon soiree having been given by Hengist 
to the Britons, to which the host and his countrymen came, with short 
swords or knives concealed in their hose, and at a given signal drew 
their weapons upon their unsuspecting guests. Many historians have 
doubted this dreadful tale, and it certainly is scarcely credible that the 
Saxons should have been able to conceal in their stockings the short 
swords or carving-knives, which must have been very inconvenient to 
their calves. Stonehenge is the place at which this cruel act of the 
hard-hearted and stony Hengist is reported to have occurred; and as 
antiquarians are always more particular about dates when they are most 
likely to be wrong, the 1st of May has been fixed upon as the very day 
on which this horrible reunion was given. It has been alleged, that 
Vortigern, in order to marry Rowena, settled Kent upon Hengist; but 
it is much more probable that Hengist settled himself upon Kent with¬ 
out the intervention of any formality. It is certain that he became 
King of the County, to which he affixed Middlesex, Essex, and a part 
of Surrey; so that, as sovereigns went in those early days, he could 
scarcely be called a petty potentate. The success of Hengist induced 
several of his countrymen, after his death, to attempt to walk in his 
shoes; but it has been well and wisely said, that in following the foot¬ 
steps of a great man an equally capacious understanding is requisite. 

The Saxons who tried this experiment were divided into Saxons 
proper, Angles, and Jutes, who all passed under the common appellation 
of Angles and Saxons. The word Angles was peculiarly appropriate to 
a people so naturally sharp, and the whole science of mathematics can 
give us no angles so acute as those who figured in the early pages of our 
history. 

In the year 447, Ella the Saxon landed in Sussex with his three 
sons, and drove the Britons into a forest one hundred and twenty miles 
long and thirty broad, according to the old writers, but in our opinion 
just about as broad as it was long, for otherwise there could have been 
no room for it in the place where the old writers have planted it. 
Ella, however, succeeded in clutching a very respectable slice, which 
was called the kingdom of South Saxony, which included Surrey, 
Sussex, and the New Forest; while another invading firm, under the 
title of Cerdic and Son, started a small Vanquishing business in the 
West, and by conquering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, founded 
the kingdom of Wessex. Cerdic was considerably harassed by King 
Arthur of fabulous fame, whose valour is reported to have been such, 
that he fought twelve battles with the Saxons, and was three times 
married. His first and third wives were carried away from him, but on 
the principle that no news is good news, the historians tell us that as 


CHAP. III.J 


THE SAXONS-THE HEPTARCHY. 


15 


there are no records of his second consort, his alliance with her may 
perhaps have been a happy one. The third and last of his spouses ran 
off with his nephew Mordred, and the enraged monarch having met his 
ungrateful kinsman in battle, they engaged each other with such fury, 
that, like the Kilkenny cats, they slew one another. 

About the year 527, Ereenwine landed on the Essex flats, which he 
had no trouble in reducing, for he found them already on a very low 
level. In 547, Ida, with a host of Angles, began fishing for dominion 
off Flamborougli Head, where he effected a landing. He however 
settled on a small wild space between the Tyne and the Tees, a tiny 
possession, in which he was much teased by the beasts of the forest, 
for the place having been abandoned, Nature had established a 



Ida quitting his Kingdom. 


Zoological Society of her own in this locality. The kingdom thus 
formed was called Bernicia, and as the place was full of wild animals, 
it is’ not improbable that the British Lion may have originally come 
from the place alluded to. 

Ella, another Saxon prince, defeated Lancashire and York, taking 
the name of King of the Deiri, and causing the inhabitants to lick the 
dust, which was the only way they could find of repaying the licking 














































16 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK I 


they had received from their conqueror. Ethelred, the grandson of 
Ida, having married the daughter of Ella, began to cement the union 
in the old-established way, by robbing his wife’s relations of all their 
property. He seized on the kingdom of his brother-in-law, and added 
it to his own, uniting the petty monarchies of Deiri and Bemicia into 
the single sovereignty of Northumberland. 

Such were the several kingdoms which formed the Heptarchy 
Arithmeticians will probably tell us that seven into one will never go; 
but into one the seven did eventually go by a process that will be shown 
in the ensuing chapter. 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

THE UNION OF THE HEPTARCHY UNDER EGBERT. 

it be a sound philosophical 
truth, that two of a trade can 
never agree, we may take it 
for granted that, a fortiori , 
seven in the same business 
mil be perpetually quarreling. 
Such was speedily the case 
with the Saxon princes : and 
it is not improbable that the 
disturbed condition, familiarly 
known as a state of sixes and 
sevens, may have derived its 
title from the turmoils of the 
seven Saxon sovereigns, dur¬ 
ing the existence of the Hep¬ 
tarchy. Nothing can exceed 
the entanglement into which 
the thread of history was thrown 
by the battles and skirmishes 
of these princes. The endea¬ 
vour to lay hold of the thread would be as troublesome as the process 
of looking for a needle,* not merely in a bottle of hay, but in the very 
bosom of a haystack. Let us, however, apply the magnet of industry, 
and test the alleged fidelity of the needle to the pole by attempting to 
implant in the head of the reader a few of the points that seem best 
adapted for striking him. 

“ A needle in a bottle of hay,” is an old English phrase, of which we cannot trace the 
origin. Bottled hay must have been sad dry stuff, but it is possible the wisdom of our 
ancestors may have induced them to bottle their grass as we in the present day bottle out 
gooseberries. 



























CHAP. IV. J UNION OF THE HEPTARCHY UNDER EGBERT. 17 

We will take a run through the whole country as it was then divided, 
and will borrow from the storehouse of tradition the celebrated pair of 
seven-leagued boots, for the purpose of a scamper through the seven 
kingdoms of the Heptarchy. 

We will first drop in upon Kent, whose founder, Hengist, had no 
worthy successor till the time of Ethelbert. This individual acted on 
the principle of give and take, for he was always taking what he could, 
and giving battle. He seated himself by force on the throne of Mercia, 
into which he carried his arms, as if the throne of Kent had not afforded 
him sufficient elbow-room. This, however, he resigned to Webba, the 
rightful heir : but poor Webba [query Webber) was kept like a fly in a 
spider’s w T eb, as a tributary prince to the artful Ethelbert. This monarch's 
reign derived, however, its real glory from the introduction of Chris¬ 
tianity and the destruction of many Saxon superstitions. He kept up a 
friendly correspondence with Gregory, the punster Pope, and author of 
the celebrated jeu de mot on the word Angli, in the Roman market¬ 
place.* 



“ Non Angli sed Angeli forent si fuissent Christiani.’ 


* The pun in question is almost too venerable for repetition, but we insert it in a note, 
as no History of England seems to be complete without it. The Pope, on seeing the 
British children exposed for sale in the market-place at Rome, said they would not be Angles 
but Angels if they had been Christians. Non Angli sed Angeli forent si fuissent Christiana 






















































































































18 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK I. 


Etkelbert died in 016, having been not only king of Kent, but having 
filled the office of Bretwalda, a name given to the most influential—or, 
as we should call him , the president or chairman—of the sovereigns of the 
Heptarchy. His son, Eadbald, who succeeded, failed in supporting the 
fame of his father It would be useless to pursue the catalogue of 
Saxons who continued mounting and dismounting the throne of Kent— 
one being no sooner down than another came on—in rapid succession. 
It was Egbert, King of Wessex, who, in the year 7*23, had the art to 
seat himself on all the seven thrones at once , an achievement which, 
considering the ordinary fate of one who attempts to preserve his balance 
upon two stools, has fairly earned the admiration of posterity. 

Let us now take a skip into Northumberland—formed by Ethelred 
in the manner we have already alluded to, out of the two kingdoms of 
Heiri and Bemicia—which, though not enough for two, constituted for 
one a very respectable sovereignty. The crown of Northumberland 
seems to have been at the disposal of any one who thought it worth his 
while to go and take it; provided he was prepared to meet any little 
objections of the owner by making away with him. In this manner, 
Osred received his quietus from Kenred, a kinsman, who was killed in 
his turn by another of the family; and, after a long series of assassina 
tions, the people quietly submitted to the yoke of Egbert. 

The kingdom of East Anglia presents the same rapid panorama of 
murders which settled the succession to all the Saxon thrones; and 
Mercia, comprising the midland counties, furnishes all the materials for 
a melodrama. Offa, one of its most celebrated kings, had a daughter, 
Elfrida, to whom Ethelbert, the sovereign of the East Angles, had 
made honourable proposals, and had been invited to celebrate his 
nuptials at Hereford. In the midst of the festivities Offa asked Ethel 
bert into a back room, in which the latter had scarcely taken a chair 
when his head was unceremoniously removed from his shoulders by the 
father of his intended 

Offa having extinguished the royal family of East Anglia, by snuffing 
out the chief, took possession of the kingdom. In order to expiate his 
crime he made friends with the Pope, and exacted a penny from every 
house possessed of thirty pence, or lialf-a-crown a year, which he sent as 
a proof of penitence to the Pcoman pontiff Though at first intended by 
Offa as an offering, it was afterwards claimed as a tribute, under the name 
of Peter’s Pence, which were exacted from the people; and the custom 
may perhaps have originated the dishonourable practice of robbing Paul 
for the purpose of paying Peter 

After the usual amount of slaughter, one Wiglaff mounted the throne, 
which was in a fearfully ricketty condition. So unstable was this unde¬ 
sirable piece of Saxon upholstery that Wiglaff had no sooner sat down 
upon it than it gave way with a tremendous crash, and fell into the 
hands of Egbert, who was always ready to seize the remaining stock of 
royalty that happened to be left to an unfortunate sovereign on the eve 
of an alarming sacrifice 


CHAP. IV. J 


DEATH OF BEORTRIC 


19 


The kingdom of Essex can boast of little worthy of narration, and in 
looking through the venerable Bede, we find a string of names that are 
wholly devoid of interest. 

The history of Sussex is still more obscure, and we hasten to Wessex, 
where we find Brihtric, or Beortric, sitting in the regal arm-chair that 
Egbert had a better right to occupy. The latter fled to the court of 
OfFa, king of Mercia, to whom the former sent a message, requesting 
that Egbert’s head might be brought back by return, with one of Offa’s 
daughters, whom Beortric proposed to marry. The young lady was sent 
as per invoice, for she was rather a burden on the Mercian court; but 
Egbert’s head, being still in use, was not duly forwarded. 

Feeling that his life was a toss up, and that he might lose by heads 
coming down, Egbert wisely repaired to the court of the Emperor 
Charlemagne. There he acquired many accomplishments, took lessons 
in fencing, and received that celebrated French polish of which it may 
be fairly said in the language of criticism, that “ it ought to be found on 
every gentleman’s table.” 

Mrs. Beortric managed to poison her husband by a draft not intended 
for his acceptance, and presented by mistake, which caused a vacancy 
in the throne of Wessex. Egbert having embraced the opportunity, 
was embraced by the people, who received him with open arms, on his 
arrival from France, and hailed him as rightful heir to the Wessexian 
crown, which he had never been able to get out of his head, or on to his 
head, until the present favourable juncture. In a few years he got into 
hostilities with the Mercians, who being, as we are told by the chroniclers, 



Battle between the Mercians and Egbert. —Cotton MS. 


“ fat, corpulent, and short-winded,” soon got the worst of it. The lean 
and active troops of Egbert prevailed over the opposing cohorts, who 
were at once podgy and powerless. As they advanced to the charge, 
they were met by the blows of the enemy, and as “ it is an ill wind that 

c 2 
















20 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND [BOOK 1 . 

blows nobody good, ” so the very ill wind of the Mercians made good for 
the soldiers of Egbert, who were completely victorious. 

Mercia was now subjugated; Kent and Essex were soon subdued; 
the East Angles claimed protection ; Northumberland submitted ; 
Sussex had for some time been swamped; and Wessex belonged to 
Egbert by right of succession. Thus, about four hundred years after the 
arrival of the Saxons, the Heptarchy was dissolved, in the year 827, 
after having been in hot water for centuries It was only when the 
spirit of Egbert was thrown in, that the hot water became a strong and 
wholesome compound. 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH 


THE DANES-ALFRED. 

carcely had unanimity begun to 
prevail in England, when the 
country was invaded by the Danes, 
whose desperate valour there was 
no disdaining. Some of them, in 
the year 832, landed on the coast, 
committed a series of ravages, and 
escaped to their ships without 
being taken into custody. Egbert 
encountered them on one occasion 
at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, but 
having lost two bishops—who, by 
the bye, had no business in a fight 
—he was glad to make the best 
cf his way home again. 

The Danes, or Northmen, 
having visited Cornwall, entered 
into an alliance with some of the 
Briks, or Britons, of the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and marched into Devon¬ 
shire ; but Egbert, collecting the 
cream of the Devonshire youth, 
poured it down upon the heads 
An illuminated Letter. of his enemies. According to 

some historians, Egbert met with considerable resistance, and it 
lias even been said that the Devonshire cream experienced a severe 
clouting. It is certainly sufficient to make the milk of human 
kindness curdle in the veins when we read the various recitals of 
Danish ferocity. Egbert, however, was successful at the battle of 



Hengsdown 


Hill, where many were put to the sword, by the sword 





























CHAP. V.j 


THE DANES—Al.PKED. 


21 

being put to them, in the most unscrupulous manner. This was the 
last grand military drama in which Egbert represented the hero. He 
died in 836, after a long reign, which had been one continued shower 
of prosperity. 

Ethelwolf, the eldest son of Egbert, now came to the throne, but mis¬ 
understanding the maxim, Divide et impera, he began to divide his 
kingdom, as the best means of ruling it, and gave a slice consisting of 
Kent and its dependencies to his son Athelstane. 

The Scandinavian pirates having no longer an opponent like Egbert, 
ravaged Wessex; sailed up the Thames, which, if they could, they 
would have set on fire; gave Canterbury, Rochester, and London a 
severe dose, in the shape of pillage; and got into the heart of Surrey, 
which lost all heart on the approach of the enemy. Ethelwolf, how¬ 
ever, taking with him his second son Ethelbald, met them at Okely— 
probably in the neighbourhood of Oakley Street—and at a place still 
retaining the name of the New Cut, made a fearful incision into the 
ranks of the enemy. The Danes retired to settle in the isle of Tlianet, 
to repose after the settling they had received in Surrey, at the hands of 
the Saxons. Notwithstanding the state of his kingdom, Ethelwolf found 
time for an Italian tour, and taking with him his fourth son, Alfred the 
Great—then Alfred tho Little, for he was a child of six—started to 
Rome, on that very vague pretext, a pilgrimage. He spent a large sum 
of money abroad, gave the pope an annuity for himself, and another to 
trim the lamps of St. Peter and St. Paul, which has given rise to the 
celebrated jeu de mot that, “ instead of roaming about and getting rid of 
his cash in trimming foreign lamps, he ought to have remained at home 
for the purpose of trimming his enemies.” 

On his return through France, he fell in love with Judith, the 
daughter of Charles the Bald, the king of the Franks, who probably 
gave a good fortune to the bride, for Charles being known as the bald, 
must of course have been without any heir apparent. When Ethelwolf 
arrived at home with his new wife, he found his three sons, or as he 
had been in the habit of calling them, “ the boys,”—indignant at the 
marriage of their governor. According to some historians and 
chroniclers, Osburgha, his first wife, was not dead, but had been simply 
“put away” to make room for Judith. It certainly was a practice 
of the kings in the middle age, and particularly if they happened to be 
middle-aged kings, to “ put away ” an old wife; but the real difficulty 
must have been where on earth to put her. If Osburgha consented 
quietly to be laid upon the shelf, she must have differed from her sex 
in general. 

Athelstane being dead, Ethelbald was now the king’s eldest son, and 
had made every arrangement for a fight with his own father for the 
throne, when the old gentleman thought it better to divide his crown 
than run the risk of getting it cracked in battle. “Let us not split 
each other’s heads, my son,” he affectingly exclaimed, “ but rather let 
us split the difference. ” Ethelbald immediately cried halves when he 


1 


22 


COMIC HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. 


[COOK I. 


found his father disposed to cry quarter, and after a short debate 
they came to a division. The undutiful son got for himself the richest 
portion of the kingdom of Wessex, leaving his unfortunate sire to sigh 
over the eastern part, which was the poorest moiety of the royal 
property. The ousted Ethelwolf did not survive more than two years 
the change which had made him little better than half-a-sovereign, 
for he died in 857, and was succeeded by his son Ethelbald. 
This person was, to use an old simile, as full of mischief “as an 
egg is full of meat,” and indeed somewhat fuller, for we never yet 
found a piece of beef, mutton, or veal, in the whole course of our 
oval experience. Ethelbald, however, reigned only two years, having 
first married and subsequently divorced his father’s widow Judith, 
whose venerable parent Charles the Bald, was happily indebted 
to his baldness for being spared the misery of having his grey hairs 
brought down in sorrow to the grave by the misfortunes of his daughter. 
This young lady, for she was still young in spite of her two marriages, 
her widowhood, and divorce, had retired to a convent near Paris, when 
a gentleman of the name of Baldwin, belonging to an old standard 
family, ran away with her. He was threatened with excommunication 
by the young lady’s father, but treating the menaces of Charles the 
Bald as so much balderdash, Mr. Baldwin sent a herald to the pope, 
who allowed the marriage to be legally solemnised. 

We have given a few lines to Judith because, by her last marriage, 
she gave a most illustrious line to us; for her son having married the 
youngest daughter of Alfred the Great, was the ancestor of Maud, the 
'wife of William the Conqueror. 

Ethelbald was succeeded by Ethelbert, whose reign, though it lasted 
only five years, may be compared to a rain of cats and dogs, for he was 
constantly engaged in quarrelling. The Banes completely sacked and 
ransacked Winchester, causing Ethelbert to exclaim, with a melancholy 
smile, to one of his courtiers, “ This is indeed the bitterest cup of sack 
1 ever tasted.” He died in 866 or 867, and was succeeded by his 
brother Ethelred, who found matters arrived at such a pitch, that he 
fought nine pitched battles with the Danes in less than a twelvemonth. 
He died in the year 871, of severe wounds, and the crown fell from his 
head on to that of his younger brother Alfred. The regal diadem was 
sadly tarnished when it came to the young king, who resolved that it 
should not long continue to lack lacker ; and by his glorious deeds he 
soon restored the polish that had been rubbed off by repeated leathering. 
He had scarcely time to sit down upon the throne when he was called 
into the field to fulfil a very particular engagement with the Danes at 
Wilton. They were compelled to stipulate for a safe retreat, and went 
up to London for the winter, where they so harassed Burrhed the king 
of Mercia, in whose dominions London was situated, that the poor 
fellow ran down the steps of his throne, left his sceptre in the regal 
hall, and, repairing to Rome, finished his days in a cloister. 

The Danes still continued the awful business of dyeing and scouring, 


/ 


CHAP. V.] 


GUTHRUM THE DANE 


23 


for they scoured the country round, and dyed it with the blood of the 
inhabitants. Alfred, finding himself in the most terrible straits, 
conceived the idea of getting out of the straits by means of ships, of 
which he collected a few, and for a time he went on swimmingly. 

He taught Britannia her first lesson in ruling the waves, by destroying 
the fleet of Guthrum the Dane, who had promised to make his exit 
from the kingdom on a previous defeat, but by a disgraceful quibble he 
had, instead of making his exit, retired to Exeter From this place he 
now retreated, and took up his quarters at Gloucester, while Alfred, it 
being now about Christmas time, had repaired to spend the holidays at 
Chippenham. It was on Twelfth-night, which the Saxons were cele¬ 
brating no doubt with cake and wine, when a loud knocking was heard 



Guthrum pays an Evening Visit to Alfred. 


at the gate, and on some one going to answer the door, Guthrum and 
his Danes rushed in with overwhelming celerity Alfred, who had 

















































































































































































































































24 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK I. 


been probably favouring the company with a song—for he was fond of 
minstrelsy—made an involuntary shake on hearing the news, and ran 
off, followed by a small band, in an allegro movement, which almost 
amounted to a galop. 

The Saxon monarch finding himself deserted by his coward subjects, 
and without an army, broke up his establishment, dismissed every one 
of his servants, and, exchanging his regal trappings for a bag of old 
clothes, went about the country in various disguises. He had taken 
refuge as a peasant in the hut of a swineherd or pig-driver, whose wife 
had put some cakes on the fire to toast, and had requested Alfred to 
turn them while she was otherwise employed in trying to turn a penny 

His Majesty being bent upon his bow, never thought of the cakes, 
which were burnt up to a cinder, and the old woman, looking as black 
as the cakes themselves, taunted the king with the smallness of the 
care he took, and the largeness of his appetite. “ You can eat them 
fast enough,” she exclaimed, “ and I think you might have given the 
cakes a turn.”* “I acknowledge my fault,” replied Alfred, “for you 
and your husband have done me a good turn, and one good turn, I am 
well aware, deserves another.” 

The monarch retired to a swamp, which he called CEthelingay—now 
Athelney—or the Isle of Nobles, and some of his retainers, who stuck 
to their sovereign through thick and thin, joined him in the morasses and 
marshes he had selected for his residence. Alfred did not despair, though 
in the middle of a swamp he had no good ground for hope, until he 
heard thatHubba, the Dane, after making a hubbub in Wales, had been 
killed by a sudden sally in an alley near the mouth of the Tau, in 
Devonshire. Alfred, on this intelligence, left his retreat, and having 
recourse to his old clothes bag, disguised himself as the “ Wandering 
Minstrel,” in which character he made a very successful appearance 
at the camp of Guthrum. The jokes of Alfred, though they would 
sound very old Joe Millerisms in the present day, were quite new 
at that remote period, and the Danes were constantly in fits; so 
that the Saxon king was preparing; by splitting their sides, to 
eventually break up the ranks of his enemy. He could also sing a 
capital song, which with his comic recitations, conundrums, and 
charades, rendered him a general favourite; and his vocal powers 
may be said to have been instrumental to the accomplishment of his 
object. 

Having returned to his friends, he led them forth against Guthrum, 
who retreated to a fortified position with a handful of men, and Alfred, 
by a close blockade, took care not to let the handful of men slip through 
his fingers. 

Guthrum, tired of the raps on the knuckles he had received, threw 

* Though all the historians have given this anecdote, they vary in the words attributed 
to the old woman, and make no allusion to the reply of Alfred. So accomplished a 
monarch would hardly have found nothing at all to say for himself; and though he did 
not turn the cakes, he most probably turned the conversation in the manner we have 
described. 


CHAP. V.] 


THE DANES RAVAGE FRANCE. 


25 


himself on the kind indulgence of a British public, and appeared before 
the Saxon king in the character of an apologist. Alfred’s motto was, 
“Forget and Forgive;” but he wisely insisted on the Danes embracing 
Christianity, knowing that if their conversion should be sincere, they 
would never be guilty of any further atrocities. He stood godfather 
himself to Guthrum, who adopted the old family name of Athelstane, 
and all animosities were forgotten in the festivities of a general 
christening. A partition of the kingdom took place, and Alfred gave a 
good share, including all the east side of the island, to his new godson. 
The Danes settled tranquilly in their new possessions, though in the 
very next year, (879), a small party sailed up the Thames and landed 
on the shores of Fulham ; but finding the hardy sons of that suburban 
coast in a posture of defence, the northmen took to their heels, or rather 
to their keels, by returning to their vessels. The would-be invaders 
repaired to Ghent to try their luck in the Low Countries, for which 
their ungentlemanly conduct in violating their treaties most peculiarly 
fitted them. 

Alfred employed the period of peace in building and in law, both of 
which are generally ruinous, but which were exceedingly profitable in 
his judicious hands. Fie restored London, over which he placed his 
son-in-law, Ethelred, as Earl Eolderman or Alderman, and he esta¬ 
blished a regular militia all over the country, who if they resembled the 
militia of modem times, must have kept away the invaders by placing 
them in the position familiarly known as “ more frightened than hurt.” 

In the year 893, however, the Danes under Hasting, having ravaged 
all France, and eaten up every morsel of food they could find in that 
country, were compelled to come over to England in search of a meal. 
A portion of the invaders in two hundred and fifty ships, landed near 
Romney Marsh, at a river called Limine, and there being no one 
to oppose them in Limine, they proceeded to Appledore. Hasting, 
with eighty sail, took Milton; but he was soon routed out, and 
cutting across the Thames, he removed to Banfleet, which was only 
“over the way;” where he was broken in upon by Aldermen Ethelred at 
the head of some London citizens. The cockney cohorts seized the 
wife and two sons of Hasting, who would have been killed but for the 
magnanimity of Alfred, though it has been hinted that in sending them 
back to his foe, the Saxon long calculated that as women and children 
are only in the way when business is going forward, their presence 
might add to the embarrassments of the Danish chieftain. That such 
was really the case, may be gleaned from the fact that on a subsequent 
occasion Hasting and his followers were compelled to leave their wives 
and families behind them in the river Lea, into which the Danish fleet 
had sailed when Alfred ingeniously drew all the water off, and left the 
enemy literally aground. This manoeuvre was accomplished partially by 
digging three channels from the Lea to the Thames, and partially by 
the removal of the water in buckets, though the bucket got very 
frequently kicked by those engaged in this perilous enterprise. 


26 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


fBOOK I. 


The river Lea would have been sufficiently deep for the purposes of 
Hasting had not Alfred been deeper still, and the fleet, which had 
been the floating capital of the Danes, became a deposit in the banks 
for the benefit of the Saxons. In the spring of 897 Hasting quitted 
England; but several pirates remained; and two ships being taken at 
the Isle of Wight, Alfred, on being asked what should be done with 
the crews, exclaimed, “ Oh! they may go and be hanged at Win¬ 
chester ! ” The king’s orders having been taken literally, the marauders 
w r ere carried to Winchester, and hanged accordingly. 

Alfred, having tranquillised the country, died in the year 901, after 
a glorious reign of nearly thirty years, and is known to this day as Alfred 
the Great, an epithet which has never yet been earned by one of his 
successors 

The character of this prince seems to have been as near perfection as 
possible. His reputation as a sage has not been injured by time, nor 
has the mist of ages obscured the brightness of his military glory. He 
was a lover of literature, and a constant reader of every magazine of 
knowledge that he could lay his hands upon. An anecdote is told of his 
mother, Osburgha, having bought a book of Saxon poetry, illustrated 
according to the taste of our own times, with numerous drawings 
Alfred and his brothers were all exclaiming, “ Oh give it me! ” with 
infantine eagerness, when his parent hit on the expedient of promising 
that he who could read it first should receive it as a present. Alfred, 
proceeding on the modern principle of acquiring “ Spanish without a 
Master,” and “ French comparatively in no time,” succeeded in picking 
up Anglo-Saxon in six self-taught lessons. He accordingly w T on the 
book, which was, no doubt, of a nature well calculated to “repay 
perusal.” 

Nor w T ere war and literature the only pursuits in which Alfred 
indulged; but he added the mechanical arts to his other accomplish¬ 
ments. The sun-dial was probably known to Alfred; but that acute 
prince soon saw, or, rather, found from not seeing, that a sun-dial in 
the dark was worse than useless. Not content with being always alive 
to the time of day, he became^desirous of knowing the time of night, 
and used to bum candles of a certain length with notches in them to 
mark the hours.* These were indeed melting moments, but the wind 
often blew the candles out, or caused them to burn irregularly. Some¬ 
times they would get very long wicks, and, if every one had gone to bed, 
no one being up to snuff, might render the long wicks rather dangerous 
In this dilemma he asked himself what could be done, and his friend 
Asser, the monk, having said half sportively, “ Ah! you are on the 
horns of a dilemma,” Alfred enthusiastically replied, “I have it; 

* The practice of telling the time by burning candles was ingenious, but could not have 
been always convenient. It must have been very awkward when a thief got into one of 
the candles, thus exposing time to another thief besides procrastination. After Alfred’s 
invention ot the lanthorn, it might have been worn as a watch, in the same manner as the 
modern policeman wears the bull’s-eye. 


CHAP. V.] 


DEATH OF ALFRED. 


27 


yes ; I will turn the horns to my own advantage, and make a horn 
lanthorn.” Thus, to make use of a figure of a recent writer, Alfred 
never found himself in a difficulty without, somehow or other, making 
light of it. 

He founded the navy, and, besides being the architect of his own 
fortunes, he studied architecture for the benefit of his subjects, for he 
caused so many houses to be erected, that during his reign the country- 
seemed to be let out on one long building lease. He revised the laws, 
and his system of police was so good, that it has been said any one 
might have hung out jewels on the highway without any fear of their 
being stolen. Much, however, depends on the kind of jewellery then 
in use, for some future historian may say of the present generation, that 
such was its honesty, precious stones,—that is to say, precious large 
stones,—might be left in the streets without any one offering to take 
them up and walk away with them. 

Alfred gave encouragement not only to native, but to foreign talent, 
and sent out Switlielm, bishop of Sherburn, to India, by what is now 
called the overland journey, and the good bishop was therefore the 
original Indian male—or Saxon Waghorn. He brought from India 
several gems, and a quantity of pepper—the gems being generously 
given by Alfred to his friends, and the pepper freely bestowed on his 
enemies. 

He died on the 26th of October, 901, in the fifty-third year of his age, 
and thirtieth of his reign, having fought in person fifty-six times; so that 
his life must have been one continued round of sparring with one or other 
of his enemies. All the chroniclers and historians have agreed in pro¬ 
nouncing unqualified praise upon Alfred ; and unless puffing had reached 
a perfection, and acquired an effrontery which it has scarcely shown 
in the present day, he must be considered a paragon of perfection 
who never yet had a parallel. It is certain we have had but one 
Alfred, from the Saxon period to the present ; but we have now a 
prospect of another, who, let us hope, may evince, at some future time, 
something more than a merely nominal resemblance to him who has been 
the subject of this somewhat lengthy chapter. 


28 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH. 

FROM KING EDWARD THE ELDER TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

tlie death of Alfred, his second 
son, Edward, took possession of the 
throne, when he was served with a 
notice of ejectment by his cousin 
Ethelwald. Preparations were made 
for commencing and defending an 
action at Wimbum, when Ethel 
wald, intimidated by the strength 
of his opponent, declined to go on 
with the proceedings, and judgment, 
as in case of a nonsuit, was claimed 
on Edward’s behalf. Subsequently, 
however, Ethelwald moved, appa¬ 
rently with a view to a new trial, 
towards Bury, where some of the 
Kentish men had ventured; and 
an action having come off, he 
incurred very heavy damage, which ended in his paying the costs of 
the day with his own existence. Edward derived much aid from 
Ethelfleda, a sister, -who acted as a sister, by assisting him in his 
wars against his enemies. This energetic specimen of the British 
female inherited all the spirit of her father, as well as his mantle, 
which we find in looking into our own Mackintosh.* She is called 
“ The Lady of Mercia ” by the old chroniclers ; but as she was always 
foremost in a fight, there seems something slyly satirical in giving the 
name of lady to a person of the most fearfully unladylike propensities. 
She beat the Welsh unmercifully, filling their country with wailings as 
well as covering their backs with wails, and she took prisoner the king’s 
wife, with whom it may be presumed she came furiously to the scratch 
before the capture was accomplished. Ethelfleda died in the year 920, 
and her brother in 925, the latter being succeeded by his natural son, 
Athelstane,who had no sooner got the crown on his head, than he found 
several persons preparing to have a snatch at it. He, however, defeated 
all his enemies, and devoted his time to polishing his throne, adding 
lustre to his crown, and giving brightness to his sceptre. It was in this 
reign that England first became an asylum for foreign refugees, to whom 
Athelstane always extended his hospitality. Louis d’Outremer, the 
French King, and several Celtic princes of Armorica or Brittany^ 

* Sir James Mackintosh’s “ History of England,” Vol. I. Chap, ii., p. 49. 











CHAP. VI.] 


DEATH OF ATHELSTANE. 


Q9 


played at hide-and-seek in London lodgings, while keeping out of the 
way of their rebellious subjects. 

It is probable that the part of the metropolis called Little Britain, 
may have derived its name from the princes having established a little 
Brittany of their own in that locality. Athelstane appears also to have 
taken a limited number of pupils into his own palace to board and 
educate, for Harold, the King of Norway, consigned his son Haco to 
the care and tuition of the Saxon monarch. 

Athelstane died in the year 940, in his forty-seventh year, and was 
succeeded by Edmund the Atheling, a youth of eighteen, whose taste 
for elegance and splendour obtained for him the name of the 
Magnificent. He gave very large dinner parties to his nobles, and at 
one of these his eye fell upon one Leof, a notorious robber, returned 
from banishment, one of the Saxon swell mob who had been transported, 
but had escaped; and who, from some remissness on the part of the 
police, had obtained admission to the palace. Edmund commanded 
the proper officer to turn him out, but Leof—tempted no doubt by the 
sideboard of plate—insisted on remaining at the banquet Edmund, 



Edmund and Leof. 


who, as the chroniclers tell us was heated by wine, jumped up from 
his seat, and forgetting the king in the constable, seized Leof by his 













































































































































GO 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I. 


collar and liis hair, intending to turn him out neck and crop. Leof still 
refusing to “ move on,” the impetuous Edmund commenced wrestling 
with the intruder, who, irritated at a sudden and severe kick on his 
shins, drew a dagger from under his cloak, and stabbed the sovereign 
in a vital part. The nobles, who had formed a circle round the 
combatants, and had been encouraging their king with shouts of 
“ Bravo, Edmund ! ” “ Give it him, your majesty! ” were so infuriated at 
the foul play of the thief, and his un-English recourse to the knife, that 
they fell upon him at once, and cut him literally to pieces. 

Edred, the brother and successor of Edmund, though not twenty 
three years of age, was in a wretched state of health when he came to 
the throne. He had lost his teeth, and of course had none to show 
when threatened by his enemies; and he was so weak in the feet, that 
he literally seemed to be without a leg to stand upon. Nevertheless 
he succeeded in vanquishing the Danes, who could not hurt a hair of 
his head; but, as the chroniclers tell us that every bit of his hair had 
fallen off, his security in this respect is easily accounted for. The 
vigour that marked his reign has, however, been attributed to Dunstan, 
the abbot, who now began to figure as a political character. 

Edred soon died, and left the ldngdom to his little brother Edwy, a 
lad of fifteen, who soon married Elgiva, a young lady of good family, 
and took his wife’s mother home to live with them. On the day of his 
coronation he had given a party, and the gentlemen, including Odo, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dunstan, the monk, were still sitting 
over their wine, when Edwy slipped out to join.the ladies. Odo and 
Dunstan, who were both six-bottle men, became angry at the absence 
of their royal host, and the latter, at the suggestion of the former, went 
staggering after the king to lug him back to the banquet-room. Edwy 
was quietly seated with his wife and her mother in the boudoir—for it 
being a gentlemen’s party, no ladies seem to have been among the 
guests—and the monk, hiccuping out some gross abuse of the queen 
and her mamma, collared the young king, who was dragged back to 
the wine-table. 

Though this outrage may have been half festive, interlarded with 
exclamations of “ Come along, old boy,” “ Don’t leave us, old chap,” 
and other similar phrases of social familiarity, Edwy never forgave 
the monk, whom he called upon to account for money received in his 
late capacity of treasurer to the royal household. Dunstan being w r hat 
is usually termed a “jolly dog,” and a “social companion,” was of 
course most irregular in money matters; and finding it quite impossible 
to make out his books, he ran away to avoid the inconvenience of a 
regular settlement. 

Dunstan, nevertheless, resolved to pay his royal master off on the 
first opportunity; and a rising having been instigated by his friend and 
pot-companion, Archbishop Odo, Edgar, the brother of Edwy, was 
declared independent sovereign of the whole of the island north of the 
Thames. Dunstan returned from his brief exile ; but, in the mean time, 


CHAP. VI.] 


EDGAR SUCCEEDS TO THE THRONE. 


31 


Edwy had been deprived of his wife, Elgiva, by forcible abduction, at 
the instigation of the odious Odo. The lovely unfortunate had her face 
branded with a hot iron, and the most cruel means were taken to deprive 
her of the beauty which was supposed to be the cause of her ascendancy 
over the heart of her royal husband. Some historians have attributed 
this outrage to the designs of Dunstan, and among the many irons that 
monk was known to have had in the fire, may have been the very irons 
with which this horrible barbarity was perpetrated. Her scars were, how 
ever, obliterated by some Kalydor known at the time, and probably the 
invention of some knightly Sir Rowland of that early era. She was on the 
point of rejoining Edwy at Gloucester, when she was savagely murdered 
by the enemies of her husband, who did not long survive her, for in the 
following year, 958, he perished either by assassination or a broken heart. 

Edgar, a mere lad, of whom Dunstan had made a ladder for his own 
ambition, now succeeded to his brother’s dignities, if a series of nothing 
but indignities can deserve to be so called. The wily monk had now 
become Archbishop of Canterbuiy, and encouraged the new king to 
make royal progresses among his subjects, in the course of which he 
is said to have gone upon the river Dee, in an eight-oared cutter, rowed 
by eight crowned sovereigns. In this illustrious water party Kenneth, 
King of Scotland, pulled the stroke oar, their Majesties of Cumbria, 
Anglesey, Galloway, Westmere, and the three Welsh sovereigns, making 
up the remainder of the royal crew, over which Edgar himself presided 
as coxswain. 

Though the young King gave great satisfaction in his public capacity, 
his private character was exceedingly reprehensible. His inconstancy 
towards the fair got him into sad disgrace, and his friend Dunstan on 
one occasion administered to him a severe reprimand. The monk, how¬ 
ever, finished by fining him a crown, prohibiting him from putting on, 
during a period of seven years, that very uncomfortable article of the 
regalia. As the head is proverbially uneasy which wears a crown, the 
sentence passed upon the King must have been a boon rather than a 
punishment. 

Among the events connected with the reign of Edgar, his marriage 
with Elfrida must always stand conspicuous. He had heard much of 
a provincial beauty, the daughter of Olgar, or Ordgar, Earl of Devonshire, 
and the King sent his favourite, the Earl of Athelwold, to see this 
rustic belle , with the view of ascertaining whether the flower would be 
worth transplanting to the palace of the sovereign. Athelwold, on 
seeing the young lady, fell in love with her himself, from her extreme 
beauty; but wrote up to Edgar, declaring that she might well be called 
“ the mistress of the village plain, ” for her plainness was absolutely pain¬ 
ful; and indeed he added in a P.S., “ She is so disfigured by a squint, as 
to give me the idea of the very squintessence of ugliness.” Athelwold 
attributed her reputation for beauty to her fortune, and declared that 
her money turned her red hair into golden locks, causing her to be well 
“ worthy the attention of Persons about to Marry ” 



32 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK I 


Edgar soon gave his consent to Athelwold’s espousing the lady, on 
the ground of her being a good match for him ; but she proved more than 
a match for him a short time afterwards. Edgar, at the expiration of the 
honeymoon, proposed to visit his friend, who made excuses as long as he 
could, insinuating that he was seldom at home, and that he could not 
exactly say when His Majesty would be sure of catching him. The king, 
however, good-naturedly promising to be satisfied with pot-luck, fixed a 
day for his visit; and Athelwold confessing all to his wife, begged her 
to disguise her charms, by putting on her shabbiest gown, and to 
behave herself in such a manner as to make the king believe he had 
lost nothing in not having married her. 

“ I should like to see myself appearing as a dowdy before my 
sovereign,” was the lady’s feminine reply, and she paid more than usual 
attention to her toilette in order to attract the favourable notice of Edgar 
The monarch finding himself deceived by Athelwold, asked him to come 
and hunt in a wood, when, without any preliminary beating about the 
bush, and exclaiming: “ You made game of me, thus do I make game 
of you,” he stabbed the unfortunate earl, and returned home to marry 
his widow. Edgar did not live many years after this ungentlemanly 
conduct, but died at the early age of two-and-tliirty. Though he had 
been favourable to priestcraft, and patronised the cunning foxes of the 
Church, he was an enemy to wolves, and offered so much per head for 
all that were killed, until the race was exterminated, and the cry of 
“ Wolf” became synonymous with a false alarm of danger. 

Edgar was succeeded (a.d. 975) by Edward, his son by his first wife, 
who was not more than fourteen or fifteen years old; and thus, at that 
age before which an individual in the present day is not legally qualified 
to drive a cab, this royal hobbledehoy assumed the reins of government. 
His mother-in-law, Elfrida, endeavoured to grasp them for her own son 
Ethelred, an infant of six, but Dunstan having at that moment the whip 
hand, prevented her from reaching the point she was driving at. 

Edward, who acquired the name of the Martyr, was accordingly 
crowned at Kingston, where coronations formerly came off; but he did 
not long survive, for hunting one day near Corfe Castle, he made a 
morning call on his mother-in-law, Elfrida, and requested that a drop of 
something to drink might be brought to him. As Elfrida was offering 
him the ale in front, her porter dropped upon him in the back, and 
inflicted a stab which caused him to set spurs to his horse ; but falling 
off from loss of blood, he was drawn—a lifeless bier—for a considerable 
distance. Elfrida has been acquitted by some of having been the instigator 
of this cruel act, but as it is said she whipped her little son Ethelred 
for crying at the news of the death of his half-brother Edward, we can 
scarcely admit that there is any doubt of which we can give her the 
benefit. Both mother and son became so exceedingly unpopular that 
an attempt was made to set up a rival on the throne, to the exclusion of 
Ethelred, and the crown was offered to the late king’s natural daughter, 
whose name was Edgitha. 


CHAP. VI.] ACCESSION OF ETHELRED TO THE THRONE. 


33 


Edgitka, however, having observed that the regal diadem was looked 
upon as a target, at which any one might take the liberty to aim, preferred 
the comfortable hood of the nun—for she was the inmate of a monastery 
—to the jewelled cap of royalty. The crown was accordingly placed bv 
Dunstan, at Easter, a.d. 979, on the weak head of Ethelred; and it is 
said that the monk was in such a fit of ill-temper at the coronation, that 
he muttered some frightful maledictions against the boy-king, while in the 
very act of crowning him. The youthful sovereign was also indebted to 
Dunstan for the nickname of the Unready, which was probably equi 
valent to the term “ slow coach,” that is sometimes used to denote a 
person of sluggish disposition and not very brilliant mer tal faculties. 



Coronation of Ethelred the Unready. 


Ethelred was wholly incompetent to wear the crown, which was so 
much too heavy for his weak head, that he appeared to be completely 
bonneted under the burden. It sat upon him more like a porter’s knot 
than a regal diadem; while the sceptre, instead of being gracefully 
wielded by a firm hand, was to him no better than a huge poker in the 
fragile fingers of a baby 

D 




























































































































u 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I. 


Doling the early part of his reign, his mother Elfrida exercised con¬ 
siderable influence, but she at length retired from government, and 
took to the building business, erecting and endowing monasteries in 
order to expiate her sins. She became a sort of infatuated female 
Cubitt, and at every fresh qualm of conscience ran up another floor, 
which was, familiarly speaking, the “ old story ” with persons in her 
unfortunate predicament. The money expended in the erection of 
religious houses was thought to be an eligible investment in those days 
for sinners, who having no solid foundation for their hopes, were glad 
to take any ground to build upon. 

The Danes had for some time been tranquil, but their natural 
fearlessness made them ready for anything, and seeing Ethelred in a 
state of utter unreadiness on the throne, they indulged the hope of 
driving off the “ slow coach” in an early stage of his sovereignty. 

It happened that young Sweyn, a scapegrace son of the King of 
Denmark, had been turned out of doors by his father, and having become 
by the injudicious step of his parent a gentleman at large, amused 
himself by occasional attacks upon the kingdom of Ethelred. This 
sovereign, who, instead of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, 
appears to have been born one entire spoon of the real fiddle-headed 
pattern,* commenced the dangerous practice of paying the foe to leave 
him alone, which was of course holding out the prospect of a premium 
to all who took the trouble to bully him. He paid down ten thousand 
pounds in silver to the sea-kings, on condition of their retiring from 
his country, which they did until they had spent all the money, when 
they returned, threatening to pay him off, or be paid off themselves, an 
arrangement which Ethelred three times mustered the means of carry¬ 
ing into operation. 

Young Sweyn had now become King of Denmark, and had made 
friends with Olave, King of Norway, the son of old Olave, a deceased 
pirate, who had made his fortune by sweeping the very profitable 
crossing from his own country to England. These two scamps ravaged 
the southern coast in 994, and Ethelred, the unready king, was obliged 
to buy them off with ready money. In the year 1001, they made 
another demand of twenty-four thousand pounds, which left tho 
sovereign not a single dump, except those into which he naturally fell 
at the draining of his treasury. 

Ethelred, who, if he was unready for everything else, appears to have 
been always ready for a quarrel, had contrived to fall out with Richard 
II., Duke of Normandy, and he was on the point of taking up arms, 
when he laid his hand at the feet of Emma, the sister of his enemy. 
Emma, who was called the “ Flower of Normandy,” consented to 
transplant herself to England, and became the acknowledged daisy of 
the British Court. 

We would willingly take an enormous dip of ink, and letting it fall 

* Others think this royal spoon was not fiddle-headed, but that he was the earliest spe¬ 
cimen of the King’s pattern. 


CHAP. VI.] MASSACRE OF THE DANES BY THE ENGLISH. <15 

on our paper, blot out for ever from our annals the Danish massacre, 
which occurred at about the period to which our history has arrived. 
Unfortunately, however, were we to overturn an entire inkstand, we 
should only add to the blackness of the page, which tells us that the 
Danes were savagely murdered at a time when they were living as 
fellow-subjects among the people. 

It was on the feast of St. Brice, soon after his marriage with Emma, 
that the order to commit this sanguinary act was given by Ethelred. It 
is true that the Danish mercenaries had given great provocation by their 
insolence. They had, according to the old chroniclers,* sunk into such 
effeminacy that they washed themselves once a week and combed their 
heads still more frequently. We cannot perhaps accuse the chroniclers 
of being over nice in their objections to the Danish habits of cleanliness, 
but we really are at a loss to see the effeminacy of taking a bath every 
seven days, and preventing the hair from becoming in appearance little 
better than a quantity of hay in a state of unraked roughness. It was on 
the 15th of November, 1002, which happened to be one of their weekly 
washing days, that the Danes were surprised and treated in the bar¬ 
barous manner we have alluded to. The Lady Gunhilda, the sister of 
Sweyn, and the wife of an English earl of Danish extraction, was one 
of the victims of the massacre, and died fighting to the last with that 
truly feminine weapon, the tongue, predicting that her death would be 
followed by the downfal of the English nation. This act of ferocity 
naturally exasperated Sweyn, who resolved on invading England, and 
he prepared a considerable fleet, the vessels belonging to which appear 
to have been got up much in the same style as the civic barges on 
the Thames, for they were gaily gilded, and had all sorts of emble¬ 
matical devices painted over them. Sweyn himself arrived in the Great 
Dragon, a boat made in the inconvenient form of that disagreeable 
animal. Had the patron Saint of England been at hand to do his duty 
at that early period, the great dragon would have been speedily overcome, 
but it is a familiar observation, that people of this sort are never to be 
found when they are really wanted. 

The invaders landed at Exeter, which was governed by a Norman 
baron, a favourite of the queen ; but, as frequently happens in the course 
of events as well as on the race-course, the favourite proved deceptive 
when the enemy took the field, and resigned the place to pillage. The 
Danish foe marched into Wiltshire, and in eveiy town they passed 
through they ordered the best of everything for dinner, when, after 
eating to excess of all the delicacies of the season, they had the indelicacy 
to settle their hosts when the bill was brought to them for settlement. 
To prevent even the possibility of old scores being kept against them, 
which they might one day be called upon to pay off, they burned down 
the houses, thus making a bonfire of all the property, including 
account books, papers, and wooden tallies that the establishment might 

* Wallingford, p. 547. 

D 2 


36 


COMIC IIISTORi' OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I 


contain. The entertainers or landlords had no sooner presented a bill, 
than it was met by a savage endorsement on their own hacks ; and, 
though drawing and accepting may be regarded as a very customary 
commercial transaction, still, when the drawer draws a huge sword, the 
acceptor is likely to get by far the w r orst of it. 



Settling the Bill. 


An Anglo-Saxon army was, however, organised at last, to oppose the 
Danes; but Alfric the Mercian—an old traitor, who had on a former 
occasion played the knave against the king—was put at the head of it. 
Ethelred had punished the first treachery of the father by putting out 
the eyes of the son: but this castigation of the “ wrong boy,” the 
young one instead of the old one, had not proved effectual. His 
majesty must have been as blind as he had rendered the innocent youth, 
to have again entrusted Alfric with command; and the consequences 
were soon felt, for the old imposter pretended to be taken suddenly ill, 
just as his men were going into battle. He called them off at the most 
important moment; and instead of stopping at home by himself, putting 
his feet in warm water, and laying up while the battle was being 
fought under directions which he could just as easily have given from 
his own room, he shouted for help from the whole army; and by 
sending some for salts, others for senna, a cohort here for a pill, and a 


































































































CHAP. VI.J 


INCURSIONS AND RAVAGES BY THE DANES. 


37 


legion there for a leech, he managed to keep the whole of the forces 
occupied in running about for him. 

Sweyn hi the meantime got clear off with all his booty, and by the 
time that Alfric announced himself to be a little better, and able to go 
out, the enemy had vanished altogether from the neighbourhood. 

An appetite for conquest was not however the only appetite which 
the Danes indulged, for their voracity in eating was such that they 
created a panic wherever they showed themselves. They ravaged 
Norfolk, and having reduced it to its last dumpling, they fell upon 
Yarmouth, whose bloaters they speedily exhausted, when they tried 
Cambridge, having probably been attracted thither by the fame of its 
sausages. Subsequently they advanced upon Huntingdonshire and 



A Dane securing his Booty. 


Lincolnshire, where they continued as long as they could find a bone to 
pick with the inhabitants. They then crossed the Baltic, (a.d. 1004,) 
having been obliged to quit England on account of there being literally 
nothing to eat; so that a joint occupation with the natives had become 
utterly impossible. Those only, who from its being the land of their 
birth, felt that they must always have a stake in the country, could 
possibly have mustered the resolution to remain in it. The vengeance 
of Sweyn being unsatisfied, he returned in the year 1006, when he 
carried fire and sword into every part, and it has been said with much 
felicity of expression, that amidst so much sacking the inhabitants had 
scarcely a bed to lie down upon. 

Unable to offer him any effectual check, the Great Council tried what 
could be done with ready money, and £36,000 was the price demanded 
to pay out this formidable “ man in possession ” from the harassed and 
exhausted country The sum was collected by an income-tax of about 















































38 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I 


twenty shillings in the pound, or even more, if it coulu be got out of the 
people by either threats or violence. Such as had paid the Danes 
directly to save their homes from destruction were obliged to pay over 
again,' like a railway traveller who loses his ticket; and the natives 
seem to have got into a special train 
of evils, in which every engine of 
persecution was used against them. 

In 1008 new burdens were 
thrown upon the people, who for 
every nine hides of land were bound 
to find a man armed with a helmet 
and breastplate. This would seem 
no very difficult matter, consider¬ 
ing that two or three such men 
are found annually at the Lord 
Mayor’s show ; but in former times 
they had something more difficult 
to do than walk in a procession. 

Though two shillings and his beer 
will, it is believed, secure the ser 
vices of an ancient knight, armed 
cap-a-pie at an hour’s notice in our 
own day, such a person was not to 
be had so cheap in the time of 
Ethell’ed. In addition to this in- Soldier of the Period, 

fliction, every three hundred and 

ten hides of land were bound to build and equip a ship for the defence 
of the country; but it seems, after all, nothing but fair, that the hides 
should club together to save themselves from tanning. The fleet thus 
raised was, however, soon rendered valueless, in consequence of the 
various commanders having refused to row in the same boat, or rather 
insisting on pulling different ways, to the utter annihilation of their 
master’s interest. 

Ethelred had selected for his favourite a low fellow of the name of 
Edric, who was exceedingly eloquent, and had not only talked one of 
the king’s daughters into accepting his hand, but had even talked the 
monarch himself into sanctioning the unequal marriage. Edric had 
obtained for his brother Briglitric a high post in the navy, as commander 
of eight vessels; but the latter got into a quarrel with his nephew, 
Wulfnotli, who was known by the odd appellation of the “ Child of the 
South Saxons,” or the Sussex lad, as we should take the liberty of 
calling him. The “ child ” determined on flight; but with a truly 
infantine objection to run alone, he got twenty of the king’s ships to 
run along with him. Brightric cruised after him with eighty sail, but 
the tempest rising, and the rudders at the stern refusing to act, he was 
driven on shore by stem necessity. Wulfuoth, who had done a little 
ravaging on his own private account along the southern coast, returned 











CHAP. VI.] REVERSES OF THE ENGLISH UNDER ETHELRED. 


39 


to make fire-wood of the timbers of Brightric. which fortune had so 
cruelly shivered. 

Ethelred was completely panic-stricken at the news of this reverse, 
and hurried home as fast as he could to summon a council, but every 
resolution that was passed no one had the resolution to execute. To 
add to the king’s embarrassments, “ Thurkill’s host ” came over, com¬ 
prising the flower of the Scandinavian youth, which planted itself in 
Kent, and caused a sad blow to the country. Various short peaces were 
purchased by the Saxons at so much a piece; but, as Pope Gregory 
would have had it, every arrangement was not a sale, but a sell on the 
part of Tliurkill, who continued sending in a fresh account for every 



Thurkill's little Account. 


fresh transaction. Ethelred was now in the very midst of traitors, and 
it was impossible that he should ever be brought round in such a circle. 
He had not a single officer to whom a commission could be safely en¬ 
trusted. Edric, his favourite, having taken offence, joined the enemy 
in an attack upon Canterbury, which had lasted for twenty days, when 
some one left the gate of the city ajar, either by design or accident. 

Alphege, the good archbishop, who had defended the place, was 
instantly loaded with chains; and though he felt himself dieadfully 





































































































































































































40 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK I. 


fettered, he declined to purchase his ransom, for the very best of all 
reasons, namely, that he had not the money to pay for it. The old 
man, wisely making a virtue of necessity, proclaimed his determination 
not to part with a shilling, “and indeed,” said he, “I couldnt if I 
would; for to tell you the truth, I haven’t got it.” 

The venerable prelate turning his pockets inside out, proved that 
he was penniless, when they offered to release him if he would per¬ 
suade Ethelred to subscribe handsomely to the Danish rent, as we 
are fully justified in calling it. The archbishop, however, grew ex¬ 
ceedingly saucy, when they pelted him with the remains of the feast, 
throwing bones, bottles, and bread, in rapid succession at the primate, 
who meekly bowed his head—or perhaps bobbed it up and down—to 
the treatment he experienced. The good old man remained for some 
time unshaken, till a shower of marrow-bones threw him on his knees, 
and one of the ruffians with a coarse pun exclaiming—“ Let us make 
no more bones about it, but despatch him at once,” brutally realised his 
own ferocious suggestion. 

Thurkill now sent in another account of forty-eight thousand pounds, 
as the price of his promised allegiance, which was certainly not w r orth 
a week’s purchase, but Ethelred somehow or other found and paid the 
Eaoney. Sweyn, on hearing of this proceeding, pretended to be very 
angry with Thurkill, and fitted out a formidable fleet, with the avowed 
intention of killing with one stone two birds—namely, the Danish 
crow, and the Saxon pigeon. The ships of Sweyn were elaborately 
carved for show, and consequently not very well cut out for service. 
Nevertheless they were quite strong enough to vanquish the dispirited 
Saxons, who would have been overawed at the sight of a Danish oar, 
and might have been knocked down with a feather. 

Sweyn landed at York, and leaving his fleet in the care of his son 
Canute, carried fire and sword into the north; but as the inhabitants 
were all favourable to his cause, he had no more occasion to take fire 
into the north, than to carry coals to Newcastle. The king had sought 
refuge in London, which refused to give in until Ethelred sneaked out, 
when the citizens having been threatened, according to Sir Francis 
Pal grave,''' with damage to their “ eyes and limbs,” threw open their 
gates to the conqueror. The unready monarch made for the Isle of 
Wight, but finding apartments dear and living expensive, he packed 
off his wife and children to his brother-in-law, Richard of Normandy, 
who lived in a court at Rouen. The duke made them as comfortable 
as he could, and the lady Emma having fished for an invitation for her 
husband, at length succeeded in getting him asked, to the infinite 
delight of old “ Slowcoach,” who for once got ready at a very short notice 
to avail himself of the asylum that was offered him. Sweyn was now 
king of England, a.d. 1013, but after a reign of six weeks, entitling him 
to only half-a-quarter’s salary, he died at Gainsborough, very much 
lamented by all who did not know him. The Saxon nobles who had so 

Ohap. xiii., p. 310. 


CHAP. VI.] 


DEATH OF ETHELEED. 


41 


recently sent Etlielred away, now wanted him back again. They despatched 
a message, however, to the effect that, if he would promise to be a good 
king, and never be naughty any more, they would be glad to accept him 
once more as their sovereign. Etlielred turning his son Edmond into 
a postman, forwarded a letter by hand, promising reform, but stipulating 
that there should be no “ fraud or treachery,” or in other words, no 
humbug on either side. This arrangement, though growing out of mutual 



distrust, and being little better than a provision which each party 
thought necessary in consequence of the dishonesty of both, must be 
regarded as highly important in a constitutional point of view, for it is 
evidently the germ of those great compacts, which have since been 
cocasionally concluded between the sovereign and the people. 

Ethelred, on his arrival at home, found that Canute, the son of 
Sweyn, having been declared king by the Danes, had coolly set himself 
up as landlord of the Crown and Sceptre at Greenwich. Ethelred and 
Canute continued for three years like “ the Lion and the Unicorn, 
fighting for the Crown,” with about equal success, when death overtook 
“ Slowcoach,” after a long and inglorious reign. He died on St. 
George’s Day, 1016, having been for five-and-thirty years man and boy, 
on and off the throne of England. 



































































/ 


42 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [BOOK I 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. 

EDMOND IRONSIDES-CANUTE-HAROLD HAREFOOT-HARDICANUTE- 

EDMOND THE CONFESSOR-HAROLD-THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 

On the decease of Ethelred the citizens of London offered the throne 
to his son Edmond, who had got the strange nickname of Ironsides, 
He obtained this appellation from his extreme toughness; for it has 
been said by a contemporary that if you gave him a poke in the ribs they 
rattled like the bars of a gridiron, or the railings round an area. There 
can be no doubt that Edmond had strength on his side, as far as he was 
personally concerned, but Canute, or as some called him, C'nute and 
’Cute, often overreached young Ironsides in cunning. In one of their 
battles—the fifth of a series—the Danes were on the point of defeat, 
when Edric, whom Edmond, however hard in the ribs, was soft enough 
in the head to trust after former treachery, raised the ciy that the young 
leader had fallen. By some ingenious contrivance, Edric had cut off 
somebody’s head which resembled Edmond in features, and, perhaps, 
improving the likeness with burnt cork or other preparations, raised it 
on a spear in the field, exclaiming “ Flee, English! flee, English ! 
dead is Edmond.”* The whole army became paralysed at the sight, and 
even Ironsides himself was completely put out of countenance, for he 
was unable to tell at the moment whether his head was really upon his 
own shoulders. How Edric could have had the face to practise such an 
imposition may puzzle the reader of the present day ; but it w r as exceed¬ 
ingly likely that the trick would be aided by Edmond undergoing, as he 
no doubt would at the moment, a sudden change of countenance. 

Ironsides, though for the moment put to flight, having been as it w T ere 
frightened at his own shadow, found on reflection, in the first piece of 
water he came to, that his head was in its right place, though his heart 
had slightly failed him, and he consequently paused in his retreat, and 
met Canute face to face, on the road to Gloucestershire. Ironsides, 
stepping forward in front of his army, made the cool proposition to 
Canute that instead of risking the lives of so many brave men, they 
should settle the quarrel by single combat. Considering that Edmond 
had not only the advantage of patent-safety sides, which rendered him 
nearly battleaxe proof, but was also about twice the height of his antago • 
nist, it is not surprising that Canute declined coming in immediate 
contact with the metallic plates, which would have acted as a powerful 
battery upon the diminutive Dane. Had he accepted the crafty chal 
lenge, every blow inflicted on Ironsides would have been a severe rap on 
the knuckles to Canute, who might as well have run his head against a 

* These are the very words, exactly as they have been preserved.— Vide Sir F. PaU 
grave, chapter xliii. page 308. 


CHAP. VII.J 


EDMOND IRONSIDES AND CANUTE 


43 


brick wall as engage in a single combat with a person of such undoubted 
metal. It was, however, agreed that they should divide the realm, and 



' > 7 

Flee, English ! dead is Edmond 1 


though as a general rule it is not advisable to do anything by halves, 
this arrangement was decidedly beneficial to all parties. The armies 
were both delighted at the proposal, and their joy affords proof that 
their discretion formed a great deal more than the better part of their 
valour. 























































44 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK 1 


Canute took the north, and Edmond the south, with a nominal 
superiority over the former, so that the crown is said by the chroniclers 
to have belonged to Ironsides. It was certainly better that the ascend¬ 
ancy should have been given to one of the two, for if their territory had 
been equal the crown must have been divided, and he that had the 
thickest head might have claimed the larger share of the regal diadem. 
Edmond lived only two months after the agreement had been signed, 
and as Canute took the benefit of survivorship, it has been good- 
naturedly suggested that he must have been either the actual or virtual 
murderer of Ironsides. There are only one or two facts which spoil this 
ingenious and amiable theory; the first of which is, that there is no proof 
of his having been killed at all,—an uncertainty that is quite sufficient 
to allow the benefit of the doubt to those who have been named as his 
murderers. Hume has, without hesitation, appointed Oxford as the 
scene of the assassination, and has been kind enough to select two 
chamberlains as the perpetrators of the deed, but we have been unable 
to collect sufficient evidence to go to a jury against the anonymous 
chamberlains, whom we beg leave to dismiss with the comfortable 
assurance that they quit these pages without any stain on their characters. 

Canute, as the succeeding partner in the late firm of Edmond and 
Canute, found himself, in 1017, all alone in his glory on the British 
throne. His first care was to call a public meeting of “ bishops,” 
“duces,” and “ optimates,” at which he voted himself into the chair; 
and he caused it to be proposed and seconded that he should be king to 
the exclusion of all the descendants of Ethelred. There can be no 
doubt that the meeting was packed, for every proposition of Canute was 
received with loud cries of “ hear,” and repeated cheers. Strong reso¬ 
lutions were passed against Edwy, the grown-up brother of Edmund 
Ironsides. Proceedings were instantly commenced; he was declared 
an outlaw, and was soon taken in execution in the then usual form. 

Edmond and Edwy, the two infant sons of Ironsides, were protected 
by the plea of infancy; but Canute sent them out to dry-nurse to the 
king of the Swedes, with an intimation that if their mouths could be 
stopped by Swedish turnips, or anything else, the arrangement would 
be satisfactory to the English monarch. His Swedish Majesty, whether 
moved by pity or actuated by the feeling of “ None of my child,” sent 
the babies on to Hungary, where they were taken in, but not done for, 
as Canute had desired. The little Edmund died early, but his brother 
Edward settled respectably in life, married a relation of the Emperor 
of Germany, became a family man, and one of his daughters was subse¬ 
quently a Mrs. Malcolm, the lady of Malcolm king of Scotland. 

Edmund and Alfred, the other sons of Ethelred by Emma of 
Normandy, who were still living with their uncle Robert, had a sort of 
lawyer’s letter written in their name to Canute, threatening an action of 
trover for the sceptre, unless it were immediately restored. 

After offering a moiety—being equal to a composition of ten shillings 
in the pound—he proposed to settle the matter by marrying their 


CHAP. VII 1 


CANUTE SUCCEEDS TO THE THRONE. 


45 


mamma, who consented to this arrangement; and the claims of the 
infants were never heard of again. Neglected by their mother, they 
forgot their mother tongue—they grew up Normans instead of Saxons, 
say the old chroniclers, which seems to be going a little too far, for a 
Saxon cannot become a Norman by living in Normandy, any more than 
a man becomes a horse by residence in a stable. 

After triumphing over his enemies, Canute somewhat altered for the 
better, and became a quiet, gentlemanly, but rather jovial man. He 
was fond of music, patronised vocalists, and occasionally wrote ballads, 
one of which is still preserved. As it was said of a certain performer, 
that he would have been a good actor if he had been possessed of 
figure, voice, action, expression, and intelligence; so we may say of 
Canute, that if he had known anything of sense or syntax, if he had 
been happy at description, or possessed the slightest share of imagina¬ 
tion, he would have been a very fair poet. 



Canute performing on hi? favourite Instrument. 


A portion of one of Canute s once popular ballads has been pieseived, 
and if the other verses resembled the one that has come down to us, 
there is no reason to regret that the rest is out of print and that nobody 
has kept the manuscript. 







































































































46 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


I BOOK I. 


Tlie following is the queer quatrain which remains as the sole spe¬ 
cimen of his Majesty’s poetical abilities :— 

“ Merrily sing the monks within Ely, 

When C’nute King rowed there by; 

Row, my knights, row near the land, 

And hear we these monks sing.” 

0 

This dismal distich is said to have been suggested by his hearing the 
solemn monastic music of the choir as he rowed near the Minster of 
Ely; but we suspect the song must have been rather of a secular kind, 
or the term merrily would have been exceedingly inappropriate.* 

About the year 1017, Edric, the royal favourite, evinced some dis¬ 
position to strike for an advance of salary, when Canute resisting the 
demand, the king and the courtier came to high words. Eric of Nor 
thumbria, who happened to be sitting in the room with his battle-axe,— 
which was in those days as common a companion as an umbrella or a 
walking-stick in the present age,—got up, on a hint from the king, and 
axed the miserable Edric to death. 

Canute, who was also King of the Danes, the Swedes,—whose sove¬ 
reign was his vassal—and of the Northmen, had many turbulent subjects 
abroad as well as at home, but he was in the habit of employing one 
against the other, so that it was utterly immaterial to him which of 
them were slain, so that he got rid of some of them. He kept a strong 
hand over his Danish Earls, and even his nephew, “ the doughty Haco,” 
—though why he should have been called “ doughty,” is a matter of 
much doubt—was exiled for disregard of the royal authority. 

The Swedes, who were always boiling over, got at last completely 
mashed by Earl Godwin; and the kings of Fife, who, although mere 
piccoli, were monarchs of some note, having exerted themselves in a 
melancholy strain for independence, at length fell, for the sake of 
harmony, into the general submission to Canute. Six nations were now 
reduced into one general subordi—nation to the English king, who of 
course became the object of the grossest flattery, and upon one memo¬ 
rable occasion was nearly sacrificed to the puffing system of his inju¬ 
dicious friends. One day, when in the plenitude of his power, he 
caused the throne to be removed from the tlirone-room and erected, 
during low tide, on the sea-shore. Having taken his seat, surrounded 
by his courtiers, he issued a proclamation to the ocean, forbidding it to 
rise, and commanding it not, on any account, to leave its bed until his 
permission for it to get up was graciously awarded. The courtiers 
backed the royal edict, and encouraged with the grossest adulation this 
first great practical attempt to prove that Britannia rules the waves. 
Such a rule, however, was soon proved to be nothing better than a rule 
nisi , which it is impossible to make absolute when opposed by Neptune’s 

* Some writers have endeavoured to justify the royal author or vindicate the characters 
of the monks of Ely, hy saying, that in those days “merry” meant “sad.” Tlicse gen¬ 
tlemen might just as well argue that black meant white—a proposition some people 
would not hesitate to put forth as a plea for the errors of royalty. 


CHAP. VIT.] CANUTE REPROVES THE FLATTERY OF HIS COURTIERS. 47 

irresistible motion of course. Every wave of Canute’s sceptre was 
answered by a wave from the sea, and the courtiers, who were already up 
to their ankles in salt-water, began to fear that they should soon be 
pickled in the foaming brine. 

At length the monarch himself found his footstool disposed to go on 
swimmingly of its own accord, and there was every prospect that the 
whole party would undergo the ceremony of an immediate investiture 
of the bath. The sovereign, who was very lightly shod, soon found that 
his pumps were not capable of getting rid of the water, which was now 
rising very rapidly. Having sat with his feet in the sea for a few 
minutes, and not relishing the slight specimen of hydropathic treatment 
he had endured, he jumped suddenly up, and began to abuse his 
courtiers for the mess into which he had been betrayed by their out¬ 
rageous flattery. 



Canute reproving his Courtiers. 


One of the attendants who had remained at the back of the others 
during this ridiculous scene, observed drily, that the whole party would 
have been inevitably washed and done for, if Canute had not made a 
timely retreat. The sovereign was so humbled by this incident, that 
he took off his crown upon the spot, made a parcel of it at once, for 
warded it to Winchester Cathedral, and never wore it again. 


























































































































48 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK I 

Water, as we all know, can subdue the strongest spirit, and though 
the spirit of Canute could hear a great deal of mixing, it is evident 
that the sea had shown him his own weakness. In the year 1030 he 
went on a pilgrimage to Rome, "with no other staff than a wooden one in 
his hand ; and instead of a valet to follow him, he had a simple wallet 
at his back. From a letter he wrote to his bishops while abroad, it 
would seem that he received presents of “ vases of gold and vessels of 
silver, and stuffs, and garments of great price; ” so that by the time 
he got home again, his wallet must have been a tolerable burden for 
the royal back. He died at Shaftesbury, in 1035, about three years 
after his return from Rome, and w r as buried at Winchester; so that 
he finally laid his head where his crown had been already deposited. 

On the death of Canute there was the usual difficulty as to w 7 hat was 
to be done with the British Crown; for there were two or three who 
thought the cap fitted themselves, and who consequently claimed the 
right to wear it. There is no doubt that Hardicanute, the only legiti¬ 
mate son of the late King, would have tried it on had it not been left 
by will to Harold, while his brother Sweyn was the legatee of Norway 
A compromise was, however, effected, by which Harold took everything 
north of the Thames, including, of course, the Baker Street and Fins¬ 
bury districts, while Hardicanute, to whom Denmark had been bequeathed, 
took the territories on the south shore, commencing in the Belvidere 
Road, Lambeth, and terminating at the southern extremity of the king¬ 
dom. He, however, left his English dominions to the management of 
his mother and Earl Godwin, while he himself lingered in Denmark; 
on account of the convivial habits of the Scandinavian chiefs; for Hardi¬ 
canute drank, as the phrase goes, “like a fish,” though the liquid he 
imbibed was very different from that which the finny tribe are addicted to. 

Edward and Alfred, the two sons of Ethelred, had come over to be 
in the way in case of anything turning up on the death of Canute, but 
Edward finding himself rather too much in the w T ay, and fearing an 
unpleasant removal, took a return ticket for himself and party for 
Normandy. Alfred, after vainly attempting to land at Sandwich, 
happily thought of Herne Bay, and though it was in the height of the 
season, he of course found no one there to resist his progress. Having 
ventured up to Guildford on the invitation of Godwin, Alfred and his 
soldiers found a sumptuous repast and comfortable lodgings prepared 
for them. But Godwin had been more downy even than the beds, and 
the soldiers having been seized and imprisoned found wet blankets 
thrown on their hopes of hospitable treatment. Edward himself was 
cruelly murdered, and Harold, who was called Harefoot, from the speed 
with which he could run, was now able to walk over the course, for there 
was no opposition to him in the race for the stakes of Royalty. He was 
fond of nothing but hunting, and as he could catch a hare by his own 
velocity he generally had the game in his own hands. He died 
a.d. 1040, after a short reign of four years; and though, if he had 
lived to old age, he might have proved a good sovereign in the long- 


CHAP. VII.] 


HAROLD—HARDICANUTE. ^g 

mn, lie was certainly not happy in the walk of life where fortune had 
placed him. 

Hardicanute, a name signifying Canute the Hardy, or the tou»h, 
came ovei on the death of Harold; but with all his toughness he 
evinced or assumed some tenderness at the cruel fate of his brother 
Alfred. . He showed his sympathy for one by brutality towards another 
and subjected Harold s memory to the most barbarous indignities. 



Godwin, fearing that he might share the obloquy of his former 
master, propitiated Hardicanute by giving him a magnificent toy, con¬ 
sisting of a gilt ship, with a crew of eighty men, each having a bracelet of 
pure gold weighing sixteen ounces, and dressed in the most valuable 
habiliments. The new king no doubt melted the gold very speedily in 
drink, to which he was so much addicted, that he actually died intoxicated 
at a party given at Clapham, by one Clapa, from whose hame, or home, 
that suburb was called. His majesty was, according to the-chroniclers, 
“ on his legs,” and the waiters had of course left the room, when 
Hardicanute unable to get further than “ Gentlemen,” staggered into 
his seat, and was carried out—mortally inebriated.* 

* Other historians say in so many words, that “he died drunk.” We prefer using the 
milder expression of “ mortally inebriated. ’ 

VOL. T. E 















































































































50 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK T. 


The throne being now vacant, Edward, the half-brother of the late 
king, who happened to be on the spot, was induced to step up and take 
a seat, though he was the senior of the late sovereign. In those days, 
however, the rules of hereditary descent were not very rigidly followed, 
for it was success that chiefly regulated succession. Edward’s cause 
had, however, derived much support from Earl Godwin, the most extra¬ 
ordinary teetotum of former times. He had practised the political 
clicissez croisser to an extent that even in our own da} r s has seldom been 
surpassed. He had turned his coat so frequently that he had lost all 
consciousness of which was the right side and which the wrong; but 
he always treated that side as the right which happened to be upper¬ 
most. 

Godwin had, it is said, commenced life as a cow-boy, but he soon 
raised himself above the low herd, and eventually succeeded in making 
his daughter Editha the Queen of Edward. The king, who had lived 
much in Normandy, and had derived some assistance from Duke William, 
afterwards the Conqueror, had formed many Norman predilections, 
which created jealousy among his Saxon subjects. In 1051, he had 
received as a visitor his brother-in-law, one Eustace, Count of Boulogne, 
who, on returning home with his followers through Dover, insolently 
demanded gratuitous lodgings of one of the inhabitants. The Dover 
people, who are still remarkable for their high charges, and who seldom 
think of providing a cup of tea under two shillings, or a bed for less 
than lialf-a-crown, resisted the demands of Eustace and his friends, 
when a fight ensued, and the Normans were compelled to make the 
best of their way out of the neighbourhood. 

Eustace, still smarting under the blows he had received, ran howling 
to Edward, like a boy who, upon receiving a thrashing, flies to his big 
brother for redress. The king desired Godwin, who was governor of 
Dover, to chastise the place ; but the Earl positively refused, and in¬ 
sisted that the Count of Boulogne could not complain if, when he 
required to be served gratuitously, he had got regularly served out. 
Edward, irritated at this message, prepared for war, and Godwin, who 
was joined by his sons, Sweyn and Harold, had collected a powerful 
army; but when it came to the point, the soldiers on both sides gave 
evident symptoms of a desire to see the matter amicably arranged. As 
the king’s forces consisted chiefly of the Fryd or Militia, there can be 
little doubt where the panic commenced; and Godwin’s men, recog¬ 
nising among the foe some of their fellow-countrymen trembling from 
head to foot, immediately commenced shaking hands, so that there was 
an end to all firmness on both sides. A truce was consequently con¬ 
cluded, and the disputes of the parties referred to the arbitration of the 
Wittenagemot; who doomed Sweyn to outlawry, and Godwin and Harold 
to banishment. Thus the “ king’s darlings,” as they had been called, were 
disposed of, and the pets became the object of petty vengeance. Editha, 
the daughter of Godwin, shared in the general disgrace of her family; 
for the king, her husband, “reduced her,” say the chroniclers, “to her last 


EDWARD-HAROLD 


51 


CHAP. VII.] 

groat; ” and with this miserable fourpencc she was consigned to a monastery, 
where she was waited on by one servant of all-work, and controlled by 
the abbess, who was the sister of her royal tyrant. 

Edward being now released from the presence of Godwin, began to 
think of seeing his friends, and invited William of Normandy to spend 
a few months at the English Coutr. He came with a numerous retinue, 
and finding most of the high offices in the possession of Normans, he was 
able to feel himself perfectly at home. On the conclusion of his stay 
he departed, with a gift of horses, hounds, and hawks; in fact, a minia¬ 
ture menagerie, which had been presented to him by his host, without 
considering the inconvenience occasioned by adding “ a happy family ” 
to the luggage of the Norman visitor. 

Edward was not allowed much leisure, for his guest had no sooner 
departed, than he found himself threatened by Earls Godwin and 
Harold, who sailed up to London, and landed a large army in the 
Strand. This important thoroughfare, which has been in modem times 
so frequently blockaded, was stopped up at that early period by men 
who were paving their way to power; so that paviours of some kind 
have for ages been a nuisance to the neighbourhood. 

Edward agreed to a truce, by which Godwin and his sons were 
restored to their rank ; but the Earl, while dining soon afterwards with 
Edward at Windsor, was, according to some, choked in the voracious 
endeavour to swallow' a tremendous mouthful. Thus perished, from an 
appetite larger than his windpipe, one of the most illustrious characters 
of his age. Harold, his son, succeeded him in his titles and estates; 
but as the latter are said to have consisted chiefly of the Goodwin 
Sands, the legatee could not hope to keep his head above water on such 
an inheritance. 

Harold commenced his career by worrying Algar, a rival earl, who 
got worried to death (a.d. 1059), and he then turned his attention to 
the father-in-law of his victim, one Griffith, a Welsh sovereign, whose 
army not liking the bother of w r ar, cut off his head and sent it as a 
peace-offering to the opposite leader. This unceremonious manner of 
breaking the neck of a difficulty by decapitating their king, says more 
for the decision than the loyalty of the Welsh people. 

It was not long after this circumstance, that Harold, going out in a 
fishing boat on the coast of Sussex with one or two bungling mariners, 
got carried out to sea, and v T as ultimately washed ashore like an old 
blacking bottle in the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu. Having 
been picked up by the Count, poor Harold was treated as a waif, and 
impounded until a heavy sum was paid for his ransom. William of 
Normandy, upon hearing that an Earl and retinue w r ere pawned in the 
distinguished name of Harold, good naturedly redeemed them, at a 
great expense, but made the English Earl solemnly pledge himself to 
assist his deliverer in obtaining the English crown at the death of 
Edward. The king expired on the 5th of January, 1066, leaving the 
crown to William, according to some, and to Harold, according to others; 

k 2 


52 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


but as no will was ever found, it is probable enough that he agreed to 
leave the kingdom first to one and then to the other, according to which 
happened to have at the moment the ear of the soveieign.* 



Unpleasant Position of King Harold. 


Harold, forgetting the circumstance of his awkward predicament in 
the fishing boat, and ungrateful of William's services, immediately 
assumed the title of king, and got his coronation over the very same 
evening. It is even believed by some that the ceremony was so hastily 
performed as to have been a mere tete-a-tete affair between Stigand, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the new sovereign. 

When William received the news of Harold’s accession he was having 
a game with a bow and arrows in his hunting ground near Rouen. His 
trembling knees suddenly took the form of his bow, and his lip began 
to quiver. He threw himself hastily into a skiff, and crossing the 
Seine, never stopped till he reached his palace, where he walked up and 
down the hall several times, occasionally sitting down for a moment in 
the porter’s chair, then starting up and resuming his promenade up and 
down the passage. On recovering from his reverie he sent ambas 

* This Edward was generally, called the Confessor, but how lie got the name we are 
unable to say with certainty. It has been ingeniously suggested that it was on the lucus 
a non lucendo principle, and that he was called the Confessor, from his never confessing 
anything. 































































\ 




























































































































































































CHAP. VII.] INVASION BY WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 53 

sadors to demand of Harold the fulfilment of his promise; hut that 
dishonest person replied, that he being under duress when he gave his 
word, it could not he considered binding. 

William accordingly called a public meeting of Normans, at which it 
was resolved unanimously, that England should he invaded as speedily 
as possible. A subscription was immediately entered into to defray the 
cost, and volunteers were admitted to join the expedition without the 
formality of a reference. Tag from Maine and Anjou, Rag from Poitou 
and Bretagne, with Bob-tail from Flanders, came rapidly pouring in; 
while the riff of the Rhine, and the raff of the Alps, formed altogether 
a mob of the most miscellaneous character. Those families who are in 
the habit of boasting that their ancestors came in with the Conqueror, 
would scarcely be so proud of the fact if they were aware that the com 
panions of William comprised nearly all the roguery and vagabondism 
of Europe. 

A large fleet having been for some time in readiness at St. Valery, 
near Dieppe, crossed in the autumn of 1066, and on the 28tli of 
September the Normans landed without opposition at Pevensey near 
Hastings. William, who was the last to step on shore, fell flat upon 
his hands and face, which w 7 as at first considered by the soldiers as an 
evil omen; but opening his palm, which was covered with mud, he gaily 
exclaimed, “ Thus do I lay my hands upon this ground—and be assured 



The Landing of William the Conqueror. 























































































54 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK 1 


that it is a pie you shall all have a finger in.” This speech, or words 
to the same effect, restored the confidence of the soldiers, and they 
marched to Hastings, where they waited the coming of the enemy. 

Harold, who had come to London, left town by night for the Sussex 
coast, and halted at Battle, where the English forces kept it up for two 
or three days and nights with songs and revelry. At length, on Satur¬ 
day, the 14th of October, William gave the word to advance, when a 
gigantic Norman, called Taillefer, who was a minstrel and a juggler, 
went forward to execute a variety of tricks, such as throwing up his 
sword with one hand and catching it with the other; balancing his 
battle-axe on the tip of his chin ; standing on his head upon the point 
of his spear, and performing other feats of pantomimic dexterity. He 
next proceeded to sing a popular ballad, and having asked permission 
to strike the first blow, he succeeded in making a tremendous hit; but 
some one happening to return the compliment, he was very soon 
quieted. The men of London, who formed the body guard of Harold, 
made a snug and impenetrable barrier with their shields, under which 
they nestled very cosily.* 

From nine in the morning till nine in the afternoon the Normans 
continued watching for the English to emerge from under their shields, 
as a cat waits for a mouse to quit its hiding-place. As the mouse refuses 
to come to the scratch, so the Londoners declined to quit their snug¬ 
gery, until William had the happy idea of ordering his bowmen to shoot 
into the air; and they were thus down upon the foe, with considerable 
effect, by the falling of the arrows. Still the English stood firm until 
William, by a pretended retreat, induced the soldiers of Harold to quit 
their position of safety. Three times were the Saxon snails tempted to 
come out of their shells by this crafty manoeuvre, but their courage was 
still unshaken, until an arrow, shot at random, hit Harold in the left 
eye, when his dispirited followers fled like winking. 

The English king was carried to the foot of the standard, where a few 
of his soldiers formed round him a little party of Protectionists. 
William fought with desperate valour, and was advancing towards the 
banner, when an English billman drew a bill which he made payable at 
sight on the head of the Duke of Normandy. Fortunately the precious 
metal of William’s helmet was sufficient to meet the bill, which must 
otherwise have crushed the Norman leader. Harold, whose spirit 
never deserted him, observed with reference to the wound in his eye, 
that it was a bad look out, but he must make the best of it. At length 
he fell exhausted, when the English having lost their banner, found 
their energies beginning to flag, and William became the conqueror. 

* Some of them, wlio were buried under their bucklers, may have been inhabitants of 
Bucklerfcbury, which may have derived its name from the practice we have described. 


BOOK II. 


THE PERIOD FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH 

OF KING JOHN. 


CHAPTER THE FIRST. 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Before entering on our account of the reign of William the Conque¬ 
ror, a bird’s-eye view of the early biography of that illustrious person 
may be acceptable. He was born in 1024, of miscellaneous parents, 
and was a descendant of the illustrious Rollo, who wrested Normandy 
from Charles the Simple, whose simplicity consisted no doubt in his sub¬ 
mitting to be done out of his possessions. William had been in his 
early days one of those intolerable nuisances, an infant prodigy, and at 
eight years old exhibited that ripeness of judgment and energy of action 
for which the birch is in our opinion the best remedy. He had quelled 
a disturbance in his own Court, when very young; but a beadle in our 
own day can do as much as this, for a disturbance in a court is often 
quelled by that very humble officer. His marriage with Matilda, 
daughter of the Earl of Flanders, gave him the benefit of respectable 
connexion, so useful to a young man starting in life ; and after trying 
with all his might to acquire Maine, his success in obtaining it added 
to his influence. 

Such was the man whom we left in our last chapter on the field of 
Battle, and on our return to him we find him building Battle Abbey in 
memory of his victory. He caused a list or roll to be made of all the 
nobles and gentlemen who came over with him from Normandy, and 
many of them were men of mark, if we are to judge by their signatures. 
This earliest specimen in England of a genuine French roll was pre 
served for some time under the name of the roll of Battle Abbey, but 
the monks were in the habit of making it a medium for advertisement, 
by allowing the insertion of fresh names, to gratify that numerous class 
who are desirous of being thought to have come in with the Conqueror. 
The roll of Battle Abbey was no longer confined to the thorough-bred, 
but degenerated into a paltry puff, made up in the usual way, with paste 
—and scissors. 

William, instead of going at once to London, put up for a few days at 
Hastings, expecting the people to come and ask for peace; but though 




50 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IT. 


lie remained at home the greater part of the day, the callers were by no 
means numerous. He accordingly took his departure for Romney, 
which he savagely rummaged. He then went on to Dover, which Holin 
shed describes as the lock and key of all England, but the inhabitants, 
finding the lock and key in hostile hands, sagaciously made a bolt of it. 

William’s soldiers had no sooner taken possession of Dover than they 
were all seized with severe illness, but whether they availed themselves 
of the celebrated Dover Powders is exceedingly dubious. The Con¬ 
queror at length went towards London, where the Witan had proclaimed 
as king a poor little boy of the name of Edgar Atheling, the son of Edmund 
Ironside. William, however, nearly frightened the Witan out of its 
wits by burning Southwark, and a deputation started from town to 
Berkhampstead, to make submission to the Conqueror. Young Edgar 
made a formal renunciation of the throne, which was not his to 
renounce, and indeed, when he sat upon it the child fell so very far 
short, that for him to feel the ground under his feet was utterly 
impossible. 

After these concessions, the day was fixed for William’s coronation in 
Westminster Abbey, on the 2Gth of December, 1066, when the cere¬ 
mony was performed amid enthusiastic cheering which lasted for several 
minutes. 

The Normans outside not being accustomed to Saxon habits, mistook 
the applause for disapprobation, and thinking that their Duke was 
being hooted, or perhaps pelted, with “ apples, oranges, nuts, and 
pears,” they began to avenge the fancied insult by taking it out in 
violence towards the populace. Houses were burnt down in every 
direction, when the noise made without became audible to those within, 
who rushed forth to join in the row, and William, it is said, was left 
almost alone in the abbey, to finish his own coronation. He, however, 
went through the whole ceremony, and even added a few extempora¬ 
neous paragraphs to the usual coronation affidavit, by the introduction 
of an oath or two of his own, after the interruption of the ceremony. 

The Conqueror having taken some extensive premises at Barking, 
went to reside there for a short time, and was visited by several English 
families, among whom that of the warrior Coxo—since abbreviated into 
Cox—was one of the most illustrious. William found considerable 
difficulty in satisfying the rapacity of his followers, who thought nothing 
of asking for a castle, a church, an abbey, or a trifle of that kind by way 
of remuneration for their services. He scattered those articles right 
and left, according to the chroniclers; but it would be difficult to say 
where he got them from, were it not that the chroniclers are so skilled 
in castle-building that they have always a stock on hand to devote to the 
purposes of history. 

After six months’ residence in England, William, having got his half- 
year’s salary as king, was in funds to enable him to take a trip to 
Normandy. He took with him a complete sideboard of English—not 
British— plate, and with the treasures of this country dazzled the eyes 


CHAP. I.] 


REIGN OF WILLIAM TIIE CONQUEROR. 


57 


of liis continental friends and subjects. A party of Young England 
gents who accompanied him attracted also, by their long flowing hair, 
the admiration of foreigners 

Odo, William’s half-brother, who had been left at home to rule in the 
absence of the king, soon—as the reader may anticipate from the 
obvious pun that must ensue—rendered himself utterly odious. His 
treatment of the conquered people was cruel in the extreme; he filled 
the cup of misery not only to the brim, but degradation was kept con¬ 
tinually on draft, every new blow being a fresh tap for the victims of 
tyranny. The veiy smallest beer will, however, ferment at last if kept 
continually bottled up; and though the Entire of England had been for 
a time rendered flat, there was a good deal .of genuine British stout at 
bottom. A general effervescence broke out on the departure of William, 
who had acted hitherto as a cork; but Odo evinced a disposition to 
play the screw, by drawing out whatever he could in the absence of his 
superior. 

A general conspiracy seemed to be on the point of breaking out, 
when William, who had allowed letter after letter to remain unanswered 
which had been sent to entreat him to come home, started late one 
night for Dieppe, on his return to England. 'His first care was to 
assuage the discontent, and he had already learned the acknowledged 
trick, that the shortest way of stopping a British mouth, is by liberally 
feeding it. He accordingly gave a series of Christmas dinners, and he 
invited several Saxon Earls, to meet a succession of Bovine Barons. 
If the banquets were intended as a bait, there is no doubt that the 
English very readily swallowed them. By way of further propitiating 
the people, he published a law in the Saxon tongue, decreeing “ that 
eveiy son should inherit from his father,” or in other words, should take 
after him. If, however, he was liberal in his invitations to dinner, he 
took care that the people should pay the bill, for he had scarcely 
finished entertaining them, when he began taxing them most oppressively. 

William did not acquire the title of Conqueror quite so speedily as 
has been generally imagined, for he was occupied at least seven years 
in running about the country from one place to the other, wiping out, 
by many severe wipes, the remaining traces of insubordination to his 
government. In the year 1068 he besieged Exeter, where Githa, the 
aged mother of Harold, was leading a quiet life, surrounded by a bevy 
of venerable gossips. The Conqueror routed them out, and they repaired 
to Bath, where their taste for tittle-tattle might have been indulged, 
but meeting with rudeness from the celebrated Bath chaps, they hastened 
to Flanders. William now sent for his wife Matilda, whom he had not 
brought over until he could form some idea how long he was likely to 
remain in his new quarters. A cheap coronation was got up for her at 
Winchester, the contract having been taken by Aldred, Archbishop of 
York, who it is believed found all the materials for the ceremony, 
without extra charge; and as the queen was rather short, we may 
presume that everything was cut down to a low figure. A little after 


58 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


this event, Harold’s two sons, Godwin and Edmund, with a little brother, 
facetiously called Magnus, came over from Ireland, and hovered about the 
coast of Cornwall, where young Magnus, being a minor, perhaps hoped for 
sympathy. They planted their standard, expecting that the inhabitants 
would fly to it, but they only flew at it, to tear it in pieces. Poor 
Magnus, with infantine tenderness, cried like a baby over the insulted 
bunting. Tired with then* ill success, the three brothers eventually 
went over as suppliants to Denmark, where the unhappy beggars were 
received by Sweyn with amiable hospitality. 

In the ensuing year, William turned Somerset so completely 
upside down that it could not have known whether it stood on its head 
or its heels; and in every shire he took, he built a castle, by way of 
insuring the lives of himself and his followers in the county. According 
to Hollinshed, the greatest indignities were passed upon the conquered 
people. They were compelled even to regulate their beards in a par¬ 
ticular fashion, from which the youngest shaver was not exempt. They 
were obliged to “round their hair,” which probably means that they 
were obliged to keep it curled, and thus even in their coiffure they were 
ruled by a rod of iron. In addition to this, they were forced to “ frame 
themselves in the Norman fashion,” which must have made them the 
pictures of misery. 

William had, in one of his amiable moods, probably over a bottle of 
wine, promised Edwin, the brother-in law of Harold, his daughter in 
marriage. When, however, the Earl came to claim his fair prize, the 
Conqueror not only withdrew his consent, but insulted the suitor, and a 



- William refusing his Daughter to Edwin. 






























































































































































































CHAP. I.] DIVISION OF LANDS AMONGST THE NORMANS. 59 

scene ensued very similar to tlie common incident in a farce, when a 
testy old father or guardian flies into a passion with the walking gentle¬ 
man, exclaiming “ Hoity-toity! ” and calling him a young jackanapes 
Edwin, irritated at this treatment, collected an army in the north, and 
waited near the river Ouse; hut the courage of his soldiers soon oozed 
out when the Conqueror made his appearance. William was victorious ; 
but he had much to contend against during the few first years of his 
reign, and an invasion of the Danes, under Osborne, was a very trouble¬ 
some business. 

The Normans, having shut themselves up in York, set fire to some of 
the houses outside the city, to check the approach of the foe ; but the 
flames catching the Minster, a “ night wi’ Burns ” seemed to he inevi¬ 
table. Not wishing to remain to be roasted, they risked the minor 
inconvenience of being hasted, and made a very lively sally out of the 
city. They were nearly all killed, and the Danes took possession of 
York; but the place being reduced to ashes, was little better than an 
extensive dust-hole. Osborne and his followers not wishing to winter 
among the cinders, retired to their ships, and William thus had time 
to make further arrangements. 

The Conqueror was hunting in the Forest of Dean when he heard of 
the catastrophe, and having his lance in his hand, he swore he would 
never put it down until he had exterminated the enemy. This must 
have been a somewhat inconsiderate vow, for though it may have been 
chivalrous to declare he would never put down his lance until a certain 
remote event, the weapon must have been at times a very inconvenient 
companion, as he did not commence his campaign until the spring; hut 
as his vow came into operation immediately, the lance must have been 
a dead weight in his hand during the whole of the winter season. At 
length he mounted his horse, and rode rough-shod over the people of 
York, after which he took Durham, and ultimately repaired to Hexham, 
to which he administered a regular Hexham tanning. 

Robbery, under the less obnoxious name of confiscation, now became 
very general, and William commenced the wholesale subtraction of 
lands, with a view to their division among his Norman followers. The 
conquered English had nearly all their property seized, and those who 
had but little shared the lot of the wealthiest in the spoliation to which 
all were subjected. William de Percy profited largely in purse; and if 
in those days manners made the man, he must have been a made man 
indeed, for he got no less than eighty manors. Several other names 
will be found in Domesday Book, drawn up about fifteen years after the 
conquest, from which some of our oldest ancestors may learn full par¬ 
ticulars of their early ancestors. 

The title of Richmond had its origin from a Breton ruffian of the 
name of Allan, who having got a mount near York as his share of the 
plunder, gave it the name of Riche-Mont, or Rich-Mount; and the first 
Earl of Cumberland was a low fellow named Reuouf Meschines, the 
latter title being no doubt derived from mesquin, to express something 


CO 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK II. 


mean and pitiful in this individual’s character. The boast of having 
come in with the Normans is equivalent to a confession of belonging 

to a familv whose founder was a thief, or at least a receiver of stolen 

* 

articles. 

The resistance to the Conqueror was, in many parts of England, 
exceedingly obstinate, and Hereward of Lincoln, commonly called 
“England's Darling,” or the Lincoln pet, was one of the most resolute 
of William’s enemies. Such was the impetuosity of the pet, that the 
Normans imagined he must be a necromancer: and William, in order 
to turn the superstitions of the people to his own account, engaged a 
rival conjuror, or sorceress, who was placed with much solemnity on 
the top of a wooden tower, among the works that were proceeding 
for the defence of the invader’s army. Hereward, however, seizing 
his opportunity, set fire to the wizard’s temple, and the unfortu¬ 
nate conjuror being puzzled, terminated his career amidst a grand 
pyrotechnic display, which proved for Hereward and his party a blaze of 
triumph. 

The English had established a camp of refuge at Ely, but the hungry 
monks, whose profession it was to fast, were the first, when provisions 
ran short, to grumble at the scarcity. Their vows were evidently as 
empty as themselves, and though they had pledged themselves to 
abstinence, they began eating their own words with horrible voracity. 
They betrayed the isle to the Conqueror ; but Hereward refusing 
to submit, plunged, like a true son of the soil, into the swamps 
and marshes, where the Normans would not venture to follow him. 
Protected to a certain extent in the bosom of his mother earth, he 
carried on a vexatious warfare, until William offered terms which 
took the hero out of the mud, and settled him in the estates of his 
ancestors. 

It has been customary with historians to cut the conquest exceedingly 
short, as if Veni, vidi, vici, had been the motto of William ; and that, in 
fact, the Anglo-Saxons had surrendered at his nod,—overcome by the 
waving of his plume—if he ever wore one; or in other words, knocked 
down with a feather. Such, however, was not the case; for it took 
seven years’ apprenticeship to accustom the hardy natives of our isle to 
the subjection of a conqueror. 

While William was in Normandy, whither he had been called to 
protect his possessions in Maine—for, as we are told by that mad wag, 
Matthew Paris, he never lost sight of the Main chance,—Philip of 
France offered some assistance to Edgar Atheling. This individual 
accordingly set sail, but the unlucky dog had scarcely got his bark upon 
the sea, when the winds set up a dismal howl, and he was driven 
ashore near Northumberland. Edgar and a few friends escaped to 
Scotland, and at the advice of his brother-in-law, Malcolm, sought a 
reconciliation with the Conqueror, who allowed the Atheling his lodging 
in the palace of Rouen, with a pound’s worth of silver a day for his 
maintenance. 


CHAP. I.] INSURRECTIONS-ROBERT OF NORMANDY. 0] 

The king was soon recalled to England by an insurrection, got up by 
Roger Fitz Osborn, who, together with a large number of persons, who 
were all subject to Fitz, determined on resisting the insolent oppression 
of the Conqueror. Young Roger, whose father, William Fitz Osbom, 
had been of great service to the Norman invader, was engaged to 
Emma de Gael, a daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, when the banns 
were most unreasonably forbidden by the sovereign. The young couple, 
however, determined not to be foiled, had made a match of it; and at 
the wedding feast, which was given at Norwich, some violent speeches 
were made, in the course of which William was denounced as a tyrant 
and a humbug, amid repeated shouts of “ hear, hear,” from the whole 
of the company. 

The grand object of the Norman rebels was to bring round Earl 
Waltlieof, and having taken care to heat him with wine, they did 
succeed in bringing him round in a most wonderful manner. He 
assented to every proposition, and his health was drunk with enthusiasm, 
followed, no doubt, by the usual complimentary chorus, attributing to him 
the festive virtues of jollity and good fellowship. The next morning, 
however, after “ a consultation with his pillow,” according to the Saxon 
chroniclers—from which we are to infer that he and his pillow laid their 
heads together, on the principle of goose to goose—he began to think he 
had acted very foolishly at the party of the previous night, and, jumping 
out of bed, packed off a communication to those with whom he had 
promised to co-operate. After presenting his compliments, he “ begged 
to say, that the evening’s amusement not having stood the test of the 
morning’s reflection, he was under the painful necessity of withdrawing 
any consent he might have given to any enterprise that might have 
been proposed at the meeting of the day preceding.” 

The conspiracy, which had commenced in drinking, ended, very 
appropriately; in smoke; nearly all who took a part in the Norwich 
wedding were killed, and it has been well said by a modern writer that 
a share in the Norwich Union was not in those days a very profitable 
matter. It was about the year 1077 that William began to be wounded 
by that very sharp incisor—the tooth of filial disobedience. When 
preparing for the conquest of England he had promised, in the event of 
success, to resign Normandy to his son Robert, and had even taken an 
oath—clenched, probably, with the exclamation, “ So help me, Bob!”— 
that if Robert assisted in his father’s absence the boy should have the 
Duchy. 

Having conquered England, the Governor returned, and wanted 
Normandy back again, observing, with coarse quaintness, that he was 
“ not going to throw off his clothes till he went to bed,” or, in other 
words, insisting that Robert, who had got into his father’s shoes, should 
instantly evacuate the paternal higli-lows. Robert was brave, but by no 
means foppish in his dress, and had acquired the nick-name of Robert 
Curt-hose or Short-stockings. He probably derived this appellation 
from a habit of wearing socks, and it is not unlikely that he was fami 


62 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


liarly known as Bob Socks among liis friends and acquaintances. Young 
Socks, who had always been irritable, was on one occasion roused to a 
pitch of passion by having the contents of a pitcher pitched upon his 
head by his two brothers, from the balcony of his own lodging. He 
became mad with rage, and, irritated by the water on the brain, he 
ran up-stairs with a drawn sword in his hand, when the king, 
hearing the row among the three boys, rushed to the spot, and 
succeeded in quelling it in a manner not very favourable to young 
Socks, who ran away from home towards Rouen. Through the inter¬ 
cession of his mother, he was persuaded to return home, and it is 
probable that “ B. S.”—the initials of Boh Socks—was “ entreated to 
return home to his disconsolate mother, when all would be arranged to 
his satisfaction.” Nevertheless, his pocket-money continued to be as 
short as his hose, and his companions declared it to be a shame that 
he never had a shilling to spend in anything. He accordingly went to 
his father, and demanded Normandy, but the monarch refused him, 
reprimanded him for his irregular habits, and recommended him to adopt 
“the society of serious old men,”—the “ heavy fathers ” of that early 
period. Robert declared irreverently that the old pumps were exceed¬ 
ingly dry companions, and reiterated his demand for Normandy. The 
king wratlifully refused, when young Socks announced his determination 
to take his valour to the foreign market, and place it at the service of 
any one who chose to pay him his price for it. 

He visited various localities abroad, where he recounted his grievances, 
and borrowed money, making himself a sort of begging-letter impostor, 
and going about as if with a board round his neck, inscribed “ Turned out 
of doors,” or “ Totally destitute.” Though he collected a good round 
sum, he spent the whole of it in minstrels, jugglers, and parasites, so 
that he divided his time between the enjoyment of popular songs, 
conjuring tricks, and paid paragraphs, embodying the most outrageous 
puffs of his own character. After leading a vagabond life for some 
time, he was set up by Philip of France, in a castle on the confines of 
Normandy; but as he was only allowed lodging, he had to find his 
board as he could, by plundering his neighbours. One day he had 
sallied forth in search of a victim, when he found himself engaged' in 
single combat with a tall gentlemanly man in a mail coat and a vizor, 
forming a sort of iron veil, which covered his countenance. The 
combatants had been for some time banging at each other with 
savage vehemence, when Robert delivered “one, two, three,” with such 
rapid succession on the head of his antagonist, that the latter, unable 
to resist so many plumpers coming at once to the pole, retired from the 
contest. 

The stalwart knight being regularly knocked up, was glad to knock 
under, and fell to the earth with a piteous howl, in which Robert 
recognised the falsetto of his own father. Young Socks, who had a good 
heart, burst into tears, and instead of falling on his antagonist to finish 
him as he had designed, he fell upon his own knee to ask forgiveness 


CHAP. I.] IMPRISONMENT OF ODO, BISHOP OF BAYEUX. 63 

of his parent. William, who would have been settled in one more 
crack, took advantage of his son’s assistance, hut went away muttering 
maledictions against Young Socks, who subsequently finding the vin¬ 
dictiveness of his father’s character, declined any further communication 
with the “ old gentleman,” and never saw him again. 

In the reign of William the Church was always disposed to be 
militant, and among the most pugnacious priests was Walcher de 
Lorraine, the bishop of Durham, who, it is said, often turned his crozier 
into a lance, by having, we presume, a long movable hook at the end of 
it. He divided his time between preaching and plunder, correcting the 
morals of the people one day, and on the next picking their pockets. 



The Bishop of Durham. 


He was, in fact, alternately teaching and thrashing them, as if the only 
way to impress them with religious truth, w r as to beat it regularly into 
them. 

At length, however, the right reverend robber having become very 
unpopular in his neighbourhood, agreed to attend a public meeting of 
the inhabitants at Gateshead, to offer explanations on the subject of the 
murder of one Liulf, a noble Englishman, and on other miscellaneous 
business. The attendance was far more numerous than select, and the 
old bishop becoming exceedingly nervous, ran away into the church with 
all his retinue. The people declared that if he did not come out they 
would smoke him out, by setting fire to the building; and they had 
proceeded to cariy their threats into execution, when, half suffocated 
with the heat, the bishop came to the door with his face muffled up in 








































































6-1 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. BOOK IT. 

the skirts of his coat, and addressed a few words to the mob in so low a 
tone, that our reporters being at a considerable distance—almost eight 
centuries off—have not succeeded in catching them. The bishop,, 
however, caught it at once, for he was slain after a short and 
rather irregular discussion. The words “ Slay ye the bishop,” were 
distinctly heard to issue from a voice in the crowd, and the speaker, 
—whoever he was,—having put the question, the ayes, and the bishop 
had it. 

William selected one bishop to avenge another, and chose the furious 
Odo, who in spite of cries for mercy, and piteous exclamations of “ 0 ! 
don’t, Odo !” killed eveiy one that came across his path, without judicial 
forms, or, familiarly speaking, without judge or jury. This ambitious 
butcher looked with a pope’s eye at the triple crown of Rome, and set 
out for Italy, with plenty of gold, to carry his election to the papal chair 
by corruption and bribery. The virtues of the cardinals might not have 
proved so strong as the cardinal virtues; but Odo, the Bishop of 
Bayeux, had no chance of trying the experiment, for he w r as stopped in 
his expedition to Rome, at the Isle of Wight, by his brother-in-law, the 
Conqueror. William ordered his arrest; but no one volunteering to 
act as bailiff, the king seized the prelate by the robe, and took him into 
custody. “ I am a clerk—a priest,” cried Odo, endeavouring to get 
away. “ I don’t care what you are,” exclaimed William, retaining his 
hold upon his prisoner. “ The pope alone has the right to try me,” 
shrieked the bishop, getting away, and leaving a fragment of his robe 
m the king's hand. “But 1 ’ve got you, and don't mean to part with 
you again in a hurry,” muttered William, after darting forward and 
effecting the recapture of Odo, who was immediately committed to a 
dungeon in Normandy. 

The king soon after this incident lost his wife Matilda, and he 
became, after her decease, more cruel, avaricious, and jealous of his old 
companions-in-arms, than ever. One of the worst acts of his reign was 
the making of the New Forest in Hampshire, which he effected by 
driving away the inhabitants without the smallest compensation, from a 
space of nearly ninety miles in circumference. He appointed a bow- 
bearer, whose office still exists as a sinecure, with a salary of forty 
shillings a year, for which the gentleman who holds the appointment, 
swears “to be of good behaviour towards the sovereign’s wild beasts,” 
and of course, in compliance with his oath, would feel bound to touch 
his hat to the British Lion. 

After founding the New Forest, the king enacted the most oppressive 
laws; placing on the killing of a hare such penalties as are enough 
to cause “ each particular hair to stand on end,” by their extreme 
barbarity. 


CHAP. I.J 


WILLIAM MAKES HIS WILL. 


65 


lowards the end of the year 1086 William, who had grown exceed¬ 
ingly fat, started for France, to negotiate with Philip about some 



William departing for France. 


possessions, when the latter indulged in some small puns at the expense 
of the corpulency of the Conqueror. By comparing him to a fillet of veal 
on castors, and suggesting his being exhibited at a prize monarch show, 
Philip so irritated William that the latter swore, with fearful oaths, to 
make his weight felt in France ; and he kept his word, for falling 
upon Mantes, he succeeded in completely crushing it. Having, however, 
gone out on horseback to see the ruins, the gigantic animal he was 
riding stepped on some hot ashes, which set the brute dancing so 
vigorously that the pummel of the saddle gave the Conqueror a fearful 
pummelling. He was so much shaken by this incident that he resolved 
never to ride the high horse or indeed any other horse again ; and he 
was soon after removed, at his own request, to the monastery of St. 
Gervas, just outside the walls of Rouen. Becoming rapidly worse, his 
heart softened to his enemies, most of whom he pardoned, and he then 
proceeded to make his will, by which he left Normandy to his son 
Robert, and bequeathed the crown of England to be fought for by 
William and Henry, with a significant wish, however, that the former 










































































































































































































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book it 


06 

might get it. Henry exclaimed emphatically, “ What are you going to 
give me?” and on receiving for his answer, “Five thousand pounds 
weight of silver out of my treasury,” ungraciously demanded what he 
should do with such a paltry pittance. “ Be patient,” replied the king; 
“ suffer thy elder brothers to precede thee—thy time will come after 
theirs ; ” but Henry, muttering “ It’s all very well to say ‘ be patient,’ ” 
hurried out of the room, drew the cash, weighed it carefully, and 
brought a strong box to put it in.* 

To think of an iron chest at such a moment proved the possession of 
a heart of steel; and William, the elder son, was nearly as bad, for he 
hastened to England to look after the crown before his father had 
expired. 

It was on the 9th of September, 1087, that the Conqueror died, and 
his last faint sigh was the signal for a rush to the door, in which priests, 
doctors, and knights joined with furious eagerness. In vain did a dimi¬ 
nutive bishop ask a stalwart wanior “ where he was shoving to?” and 
the expostulations of a prim doctor to the crowd, entreating them to- 
keep back, as there was “plenty of time,” were utterly disregarded. The 
scene resembled that which may be witnessed occasionally at the pit 
door of the Opera, for the whole of William’s attendants were eager to 
get home for the purpose of being early in securing either some place 
or plunder. The inferior servants of the royal robber—like master, like 
man—commenced rifling the lung’s trunks and drawers of all the cash, 
jewels, and linen. There seemed every prospect of the Conqueror being 
left in the city of Rouen to be buried by the parish, when a few of the 
clergy began to think of the funeral. The Archbishop ordered that it 
should take place at St. Stephens, in Caen, and none of the family 
being present, the undertaker actually came down upon a poor good- 
natured old knight, who had put himself rather prominently forward 
as a sort of provisional committee-man. How the affair was settled we 
are unable to state, but we have it on the authority of Orderic, that 
when the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric, a man in the 
crowd jumped up, declaring the Conqueror was an old thief, and that he 
—the man in the crowd—claimed the ground on which they were then 
standing. Many of the persons round cheered him in his address, and 
the bishops, for the sake of decency, paid out the execution from the 
Conqueror’s grave for sixty shillings. 

The character of William has been a good deal blackened, but scarcely 
more than it deserves, for there is no doubt that he was cruel, selfish, 
and unprincipled. It is, however, a curious fact, that what receives 
blacking from one age gets polished by the next; and this may account 
for the brilliance that has been shed in this country over the name of 
one who introduced the feudal system, the Game Laws, and other evils, 
the escape from which has been the work of many centuries. Though a 
natural son he was an unnatural father, and the result was, that being 
an indifferent parent, his children became also indifferent. He had a 


* For further particulars of Henry’s conduct, vide Orderic. 


CHAP. II.] 


WILLIAM RUFUS. 


67 


violent temper, and was such a brutal glutton that he aimed a blow at 
Fitz-Osborne, his steward, for sending to table an under-done crane, 
when Odo interfered to check his master’s violence. Of his personal 
appearance we have an authentic record in a statue placed against one 
of the pillars of the church of St. Stephen, at Caen; but as the figure 
is without a head, we have tried in vain to form from it some idea of 
the Conqueror’s countenance. From the absence of the face in the 
statue we can only infer that William wore an expression of vacancy. 


CHAPTER THE SECOND. 

WILLIAM RUFUS. 

lliam, the son of the Conqueror, had ob¬ 
tained the nick-name of Rufus, from his 
red hair, and these jokes on personal 
peculiarities afford a lamentable proof of 
the rudeness of our ancestors. Having 
left his father at the point of death, he 
hastened to England, where he pretended 
to be acting for the king; resorting to 
what, in puffing phraseology, is termed 
the untradesmanlike artifice of “ It’s the 
same concern,” and doing business for 
himself in the name of the late sove¬ 
reign. One of his first steps was, of 
course, towards the treasury, from which 
he drew sixty thousand pounds in gold 
and silver. Having received from his 
to Archbishop Lanfranc, he rushed, with 
the avidity of a man who has got a reference to a new tailor, and 
presenting it to the primate, requested that measures might be taken 
for putting the crown on his head as soon as possible. Eanfranc, 
having secured the place of Prime Minister for himself, issued cards 
to a few prelates and barons, inviting them to a coronation on Sun¬ 
day, the 26th of September, 1087, when the event came off rather 
quietly. 

When Curt-hose—whom the reader will recognise as our old friend 
Socks—first heard of his father’s death, he was living on that limited 
but rather elastic income, his wits, at Abbeville, or in some part of 
Germany. He, however, repaired to Rouen, where he was very well 
received; while Henry, the youngest brother, stood like a donkey 
between two bundles of hay, not knowing whether he should have a bite 
at Britain or a nibble at Normandy. 

Rufus had, at the commencement of his reign, to contend with a 

f 2 







68 


OoMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


conspiracy got up by his uncle Odo, to place Robert on the throne of 
England as well as on that of Normandy; for the great experiment of 
sitting on two stools at once had not then been sufficiently carried out 
to prove the folly of attempting it. 

Odo took rapid strides, but as Robert, if he took any stride at all, 
must have attempted one from Rouen to Rochester, he remained in his 
Duchy, leaving his followers to follow their own inclination at their own 
convenience. They had fortified Rochester Castle, but being besieged, 
and a famine threatening, they were glad to find a loop-hole for escape, 
which they effected by capitulating on certain conditions, one of which, 
proposed by Odo, was a stipulation that the band should not play as the 
vanquished party left the Castle Rufus, feeling that a procession 
without music would go off flatly, refused his assent to this proposal, 
and the band accordingly struck up an appropriate air at each incident. 



Odo dismissed from Rochester Castle. 


As Odo left the Castle the “ Rogue’s March” resounded from tower to 
tower and battlement to battlement, while the people sang snatches of 
































































































































CHAP. 11.1 


RALPH LE FLAMBARD. 


69 


popular airs, among which “ Go, Naughty Man,” and “ Down among 
the Dead Men,” were perhaps the greatest favourites. Odo was event¬ 
ually banished, and the insurrection was at an end, for Curt-hose had 
neither the money nor the inclination to carry on the war; and, like a 
defunct railway scheme, the plan took its place amongst the list of 
abandoned projects. 

In the year 1088 Lanfranc, the king’s adviser, died, and was suc¬ 
ceeded by a Norman clergyman, named Ralph, who was called also Le 
Flambard, or the Torch, from his being a political incendiary, who had 
been ever ready to light up the flame of discontent at a moment’s 
notice. His nominal offices were treasurer and chaplain, but his real 
duty was to raise money for the king, extort for his majesty a large 
income, and help him to live up to it. As a tax-gatherer and a bon 
vivant he was unexceptionable; but we regret that we cannot say so 
much for him as a bishop and a gentleman. 

This person, however, succeeded only to the political, not to the 
ecclesiastical dignities of Odo; for the king, finding the revenues of 
Canterbury very acceptable, determined on acting as his own arch¬ 
bishop. He professed a desire to improve the see by using his own 
eyes, but his real view was to get all he could for the indulgence of his 
pleasures. Ralph le Flambard seems to have possessed the talent of 
extortion to a wonderful degree, and he even set at nought the proverb 
as to the impossibility of making “ a silk purse out of a sow’s ear ; ” for he 
certainly extracted immense sums by getting hold of the ear of the 
swinish multitude. 

William Rufus, having been successful against the friends of Robert 
in England, determined (a.d. 1089) on attacking the unfortunate and im¬ 
provident Curt-hose on his own ground in Normandy. Socks had no money 
to carry on the war, for he had not only cleared out his coffers to the 
last farthing, but was up to his neck in promises which he never could 
hope to realise. His bills were flying like waste-paper about every 
Exchange in Europe, and the boldest discounters shook their heads 
when a document with the familiar words “ Accepted, R. Curt-hose,” 
was shown to them. He applied, therefore, for aid to the King of 
the French, his feudal superior, who sent an army to the confines of 
Normandy, but sent a messenger at the same time to the English king, 
stating the terms on which the army might be bought off and induced 
to march back again. 

Rufus willingly paid the money, and Socks, in a fit of desperation, 
applied to his brother Henry, who had already lent him three thousand 
pounds, taking care, however, to get a third of the duchy by way of 
security for his money. He accordingly came to Rouen, where he put 
down a large sum of money : and what was better still, he put down a 
conspiracy to deliver up the city to the enemy. One Conan, a burgess, 
who was to have handed over the keys, was condemned to imprisonment 
for life; but Henry taking him up to the top of a tower under the 
pretence of showing him the scenery, brutally threw him ever. The 


TO 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


unhappy captive was beginning to expatiate on the softness of the 
landscape below, when Henry, seizing him by the waist, savagely 
recommended him to test the reality of so much apparent softness, by 
throwing himself on the kind indulgence which the verdant landscape 
appeared to offer him. The burgess had no time to reply, before he 
found himself half-way on his down journey: 

It is difficult in these days to fancy the brother of the sovereign 
visiting a condemned culprit in his prison, and taking a walk with him 
up to the top of the building, to point out to him the beauties of the 
surrounding prospect. That the royal visitor should suddenly turn 
executioner in the most barbarous manner, is still more unaccountable. 
Henry must surely have received a large quantity of the burgess’s sauce 
before he could have been provoked to an act which redounds so much 
to his discredit in the pages of history. 

In the year 1091, William and Robert settled their differences, after 
which they began to take advantage of their little brother Henry, whom 
they robbed of everything he possessed, until his suite was reduced to 
one knight, three esquires, and one chaplain. His flight was a series 
of rapid movements, to which this miserable quintette formed a kind 
of running accompaniment; but Henry, in spite of every contretemps , 
behaved himself with dignity as the leader and conductor of his little 
band. 

Rufus, on his return to England, found it overrun by Malcolm, the 
Scotch king, who, however, made a regular Scotch mull of his enter¬ 
prise. After a peace as hollow as the “ hollow beech tree ” which the 
woodpecker keeps continually on tap, poor Malcolm was invited to 
Gloucester, where he fell into an ambush—a bush in which he was torn 
to pieces by the sharp thorns of treachery. 

Duke Robert having made repeated applications to his brother, 
William Rufus, for the settlement of his claims upon England, at length 
put the matter into the hands of his solicitor, Philip of France ; who, 
after soliciting justice for Curt-hose, marched an army into Normandy. 
Rufus, knowing costs to be the only motive of Philip, who, on being 
handsomely paid, would certainly throw his client overboard, determined 
on raising a large sum; which he accomplished by levying twenty thou¬ 
sand men as soldiers, and allowing them to buy their discharge at ten 
shillings a head, an arrangement which nearly all of them gladly fell into. 
The proceeds of this transaction being handed over to Philip, that 
monarch shifted his forces from Normandy, leaving Robert to shift for 
himself; so that poor Socks was again driven to the most wretched 
extremities. 

Rufus was now troubled by the Welsh, who had overrun Cheshire, 
probably on account of its cheeses, for the Welsh were attached to their 
rabbits even so early as the eleventh century. The Red King pursued 
them over hill and dale, but they daily obtained advantages over him, 
and on reaching Snowdon he saw that it would be the height of folly to 
proceed further. After a few ups and downs over the mountains, he 


CHAP. II.] 


PETER THE HERMIT. 


71 


retreated with shame, and found occupation at home, a. d. 1094_5, in 

quelling a conspiracy headed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of North 
umberland, aided by Richard de Tunbridge, with a variety of Johns, 
Williams, and Thomases de What-d’ye-call-’em and So-and-So. Some 
of the conspirators were imprisoned, and some hanged; but a few, in 
anticipation of the fatal bolt, ran away for the purpose of avoiding it. 

Immediately after these events, Robert, roused by the preaching of 
Peter the Hermit, familiarly known as Pietro L' Eremita, determined 
on giving up business as Duke of Normandy and starting as a crusader 
for Palestine. In order to raise the money for his travelling expenses, 
and after having vainly entreated discount for his bills, he proposed to 



Robert Curt-nose trying to get a Bill discounted. 


sell his dukedom to his brother for ten thousand pounds, including the 
good-will of the house of Normandy, the crown, which was not a 
fixture, the throne with its appropriate hangings, the sceptre the sign of 
royalty, and all the palace furniture. The unscrupulous Rufus agreed 
to purchase, but being without a penny of his own, he made a demand 
on the empty pockets of his subjects. 

Several bishops and abbots having already sold all the treasures of 
their churches, told the king in plain terms they had nothing more to 
give him, when the sovereign replied, “ Have you not, I beseech you, 
coffins of gold and silver full of dead men's bones ? ” thus insinuating, 
according to Holinshed, “ that he would have the money out of their 
bones if they did not pay him otherwise ” The bishops and abbots were 



























































































































72 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK U. 

induced to take the hint of the king; and the term “ boning ” may 
have had its origin from this species of robbery. 

Having paid the ten thousand pounds, Rufus went to take possession 
of his new purchase, and met with no resistance except from one Helie, 
Lord of La Fleche, who professed to have a previous mortgage on part 
of the property. Rufus treated him as a mortgagee, so far as to pay 
him off in the current coin of the age, though a year or two after (a.d. 
1100) as the Red King was hunting in the New Forest, he heard that 
Helie had surprised the town of Mans, and of course astonished the 
men of Mans very unpleasantly. 

William turned his horse’s head towards the nearest seaport, which 
happened to be Dartmouth, plunged into the first vessel he found 
there, and ordered the sailors to start at once for Normandy. The crew 
suggested that it was a very odd start to think of setting off in a gale of 
wind; but his majesty began to storm with as much violence as the 
elements. He asked—if they ever knew of a king being drowned?—and 
if the adage applies to those who deserve hanging as well as to those 
who are born for that ceremony, Rufus might have relied on exemption 
from a wateiy terminus. He arrived safely at Harfleur, after one of the 
most boisterous passages in his life, which was one of considerable 
turbulence. The bare news of his arrival sufficed to frighten Helie, 
who first ordered his troops to fall in, and immediately ordered them to 
fall out, for he had no further use for them. Helie took to his heels, 
and William became sole master of Normandy. 

We now come to one of the most remarkable incidents in English 
history, and in our desire for accuracy we have grubbed about the records 
of the past with untiring energy. We have blown away the dust of ages 
with the bellows of research, and have, we think, succeeded in investing 
this portion of our annals with a plainness of which the very pike-staff 
itself might be fairly envious. 

It was on the first of August, in the year 1100, that William was 
passing the night at Malwood Keep, a hunting-lodge in the New Forest. 
Had there been a Court Circular in existence in those days, it would 
have recorded the names of Henry, the king’s brother, and a host of 
sporting fashionables who were present, to share the pleasures of their 
sovereign. His Majesty was heard at midnight to be talking loudly in 
his sleep, and his light having gone out, lie was crying lustily for 
candles. His attendants rushed to his room, and found him kicking 
and plunging under a nightmare, from which he was soon released, 
when he requested them to sit and talk to him. When their jokes 
were on the point of sending him to sleep, their songs kept him awake; 
and in the morning an artisan sent him six arrows as a specimen, with 
an intimation that there would be a large reduction on his taking a whole 
quiver. The king took the half-dozen on trial, keeping four for himself, 
and giving two to Sir Walter Tyrrel, with a complimentary remark that 
“ good weapons are due to the sportsman that knows how to make a 
good use of them.” 




CHAP. II.] 


DEATH OF RUFUS. 


73 


During a boisterous dejeuner a la fourchette, at which the Red King 
greatly increased his rubicundity by the quantity of wine he consumed, 
a postman arrived with a dream, from the Abbot of St. Peter’s, at 
Gloucester, done up in an envelope. “ Read it out,” exclaimed Rufus, 



Reading the Dream. 


after having glanced at its contents ; and on its being found to forebode 
a violent death to the king, he ordered a hundred pence to be given to the 
dreamer, which, supposing him to have been taking “ forty winks,” would 
have been at the liberal rate of twopence-halfpenny a wink for his rather 
disagreeable doze over the destiny of his sovereign. Rufus laughed at 
the prediction, and repaired to the chase, accompanied by Sir Walter 
Tyrrel, when a hart, in all its heart’s simplicity, came and stood between 
the illustrious sportsmen. The extraordinary hilarity of the bounding 
hart attracted the attention of Rufus, who drew his bow, but the string 
broke, and Rufus not having two strings to his bow, called out to Tyrrel 
to shoot at the bald-faced brute for his bare-faced impudence. Sir 
Walter instantly obeyed; but the animal, bobbing down his head, allowed 
the arrow to go through his own branches towards those of a huge tree, 
when the dart, taking a somewhat circuitous route, avoided the body of 
the hart and went home to the heart of the sovereign. Tyrrel ran 
towards his master, and attempted to revive him; but though there was 
plenty of harts-hom in the forest, none could be made available. The 
unfortunate regicide, merely muttering to himself some incoherent 
expressions as to his having “done it now,” galloped to the sea coast, 




















































































































































74 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK II. 

and fled to France—taking French leave of his country, according to 
the usual custom of malefactors. 



Flight of Sir Walter Tyrrel. Horse of the Period. 


The royal remains were picked up soon after by one Mr. Purkess, 
a respectable charcoal-burner, whose descendants still reside upon the 
spot, and who carted Henry off on his own responsibility to Winchester, 
where the king was honoured by a decent funeral. Though there were 
plenty of lookers-on, there were very few mourners ; and in a portrait 
of the tomb* which has been preserved, we recognise economy as the 
most prominent feature. Henry, the king's brother, made the usual 
rush to the treasury, where he filled his pockets with all the available 
assets ; and the members of the hunting party, finding that the game 
was up, started off as fast as they could in pursuit of their own interests. 

The character of Rufus is not one which the loyal historian will love 
to dwell upon. The philologist may endeavour to prove the brutal 
licentiousness of the king by deriving from Rufus the word ruffian; 
but the philologist will, however, be as much in error as the antiquarian 
who declared that Rufus, or Roofus, was so called from his being the 
builder of Westminster Hall, of which the roof was the most conspicuous 
ornament The Red King died a bachelor, at the age of forty-three, after a 

* The tomb still stands in the middle'of the choir of Winchester Cathedral. 














































CHAP. Ill ] 


HENRY THE FIRST. 


75 


very extravagant life, in the course of which he exhibited strong 
symptoms of the royal complaint—which shows itself in a mania for 
constructing and altering palaces. He would erect new staircases, and 
indulge in the most extravagant flights; but if this had been accom¬ 
panied by a few steps taken in the right direction, Posterity would not 
have judged very harshly what are, after all, the mere whims of royalty 


CHAPTER THE THIRD. 

HENRY THE FIRST, SURNAMED BEAUCLERC. 

n returning to Henry, we find 
him at the porter’s lodge, 
imperiously demanding 
the keys of the Treasury. 
While he had just suc¬ 
ceeded, by alternate bri¬ 
bery and bluster, in 
obtaining the desired 
bunch from the hesitat¬ 
ing janitor, William de 
Breteuil, the treasurer, 
came running out of 
breath, and protested, as 
energetically as the state 
of his wind would allow, 
against the money being 
carried away, when Ro¬ 
bert, the elder brother, 
had a prior right to it 
The Great Seal of Henry i. Henry, having tried a 

little argument, of which 

he got decidedly the worst, suddenly drew nis sword, and threatened 
to perforate the treasurer, or any one else who should oppose his 
progress. A mob of barons having collected round the disputants, 
took part with the new king, in expectation, no doubt, of getting a share 
of the plunder. William de Breteuil was compelled therefore to look on 
at the pocketing of the cash and jewels by Henry and his supporters, 
the treasurer occasionally entering a protest by mildly observing “Mind, 
I've nothing to do with it.” Having made use of the cash in buying the 
adherence of some of those mercenary weathercocks—from whom it is 
considered an honour, in these days, to be descended—Henry got him- 
eelf crowned on the fifth of August, in the year 1100, at Westminster 













































































7G 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


Finding his throne rather ricketty, he tried a little of the “ soft 
sawder ” which has always been found serviceable as a cement between 
the sovereign and the people. He mixed up a tolerably useful com¬ 
pound in the shape of a charter of liberties, and by laying it on rather 
thick to the Church, he obtained the support of that influential body. 
He restored ancient rights, and promised that when he had to draw 
money from his people he would always draw it as mild as possible. 

Henry’s next “ dodge ” w T as to try the effect of an English marriage, 
and he therefore sent in a sealed tender for the hand of Miss Matilda 
Malcolm, or Maud, the daughter of the King of Scots, as she is 
commonly called in history. She had already refused as many offers 
as would have filled a moderate-sized bonnet-box, and sent word back 
that she was “o’er young to marry yet,” in answer to the application of 
the English sovereign. She was, however, advised that it would be a 
capital thing for the two countries, if she would consent to the match; 
and, as it is one of the penalties of royalty to wed for patriotism instead 
of from choice, she was soon persuaded to agree to the union. 

Such instances ‘of devotion are, however, only found among royal 
families; for we doubt whether a fair Jemima Jenkins, or a bewitching 
Beatina Brown, would consent to become the wife of young Johnson in 
an adjacent street, for the sake of healing a parochial feud, or curing 
the heartburn of an entire neighbourhood. 

The marriage between Maud and Henry was very nearly being 
prevented by a report that the young lady had formerly been a nun; 
but it was proved that her aunt had been in the habit of throwing over 
her head something in the shape of a veil or-a pinafore, to prevent the 
Normans from staring at her when she went out walking. Miss 
Matilda had the candour to acknowledge that she always took off the 
unbecoming covering directly she got a little way from home, and it is 
evident she was not unwilling to have a sly peep at the Normans, when 
her aunt was not watching her. Her marriage was celebrated on the 
eleventh of November ; but Anselm the Archbishop of Canterbury, who 
officiated, came out of the Abbey before the ceremony, and in order 
to answer all false reports, stuck an enormous poster on the door, intimat¬ 
ing that Maud was “No Nun,” in tremendous capitals. 

Henry also obtained some popularity by expelling all the improper 
characters that his brother had patronised; but it does not seem that 
they were replaced by persons of a much more reputable order. Henry, 
however, affecting the estimable qualities of a new broom, began by 
sweeping clean, and scavenged the court of all his brother’s minions. 
Ralph le Flambard, the late king’s tax gatherer, was sent to the Tower, 
where he became one of the lions of the place, and by his wit captivated 
the keepers who w^ere charged with his captivity. Henry on being 
urged to get rid of him, happened to say accidentally, “No, no, give the 
fellow sufficient rope and he will hang himself,” upon which one of the 
courtiers taking his Majesty at his word, sent an enormous quantity of 
stout cord to the prisoner. Flambard having reduced the guards to the 


CHAP. III.] 


FLAMBARD ESCAPES FROM THE TOWER. 


77 


state in which tipplers wish to be who love their bottles, took the rope, 
uiid hanging himself by the waist, lowered himself into the moat beneath, 
from which he escaped to Normandy. 

Robert Curt-hose, who had turned crusader a year or two before, came 
back (a.d. 1101) with a perfect shrubbery of laurels from Palestine. The 
Normans delighted at seeing their chief smothered in the evergreens of 
glory, were easily persuaded to join him in an attack upon England. The 
followers of Curt-hose, however, soon began to waver, and after having 
received several terrific stripes, their leader agreed to take 3000 marks, 
by way of annuity, as a compromise for all his claims upon England. 
Robert was true to his part of the engagement, but Henry, under various 
pretexts, soon discontinued his payments to Socks, who nevertheless 
lived in a style of great extravagance. He filled his court with bad 
characters, who not only emptied his pockets, but sold or pawned his 
clothes ; and he is represented as often lying in bed for want of the 
necessary articles of attire to enable him to get up to breakfast. With 



The Effects of Extravagance. 


the crown on his toilet table, and the regal robe hanging across the 
back of a chair—for these insignia of royalty were always left to him— 
he was still without the minor but indispensable articles of dress; and 
he often observed to his minister, “ I can’t very well go about with 
nothing on but that scanty robe and that hollow bauble.” We can 
imagine him being reduced to the necessity of offering to pledge his 






























































































































78 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


crown, and being met by the depreciatory observation, “ that the article 
was second-hand, had been a good deal worn, and seemed very much 
tarnished.” 

At length, in the year 1105, Henry, taking advantage of Roberts 
reduced circumstances, made an attack upon Normandy. The troops 
of Curt-hose were ill-paid, ill-clad, ill-conditioned, and ill-tempered. In 
vain did Curt-hose attempt to rally them ; for they only rallied him on 
his poverty, and many of them deserted, leaving him to fight his own 
battles. His personal valour served him for a short time; he struck 
out right and left with enormous vigour, but his almost solitary efforts be¬ 
came at length absolutely absurd, and he was ultimately “ removed in 
custody.” He was subsequently committed to Cardiff Castle, where he 
died, in the year 1134, at the advanced age of nearly eighty; and it 
was said by a wag of the day, that Curt-hose had such a facility of running 
into debt that he ran up four scores with Time before the debt of Nature 
was satisfied. 

Henry was now master of Normandy, whither he on one occasion took 
his son and heir, William, a lad of eighteen, to receive the homage of the 
barons. This was an id! e ceremony, for the barons seldom kept their words; 
and homage, or hummage, was frequently a mere hum on the part of 
those who promised it. The English king was about returning from the 
port of Barfleur, when Thomas Fitz-Stephen, a sailor, originated the 
disgraceful touting system, by thrusting his card into Henry’s hands, 
and offering to take the royal party over cheap, in a well-appointed 
vessel His Majesty replied, “ I have already taken my own passage 
in another ship, but the Prince and his suite have to be conveyed, and I 
shall be happy to hear what you will undertake it for, per head, provi¬ 
sions, of course, included.” The terms w T ere soon arranged, and the 
dangerous practice of overcrowding having, even at that time, prevailed 
among mercenary speculators, three hundred people w T ere packed into a 
craft which might have comfortably accommodated about twenty. The 
Prince and his gay companions insisted on having a party on board the 
night previous to starting, and the crew, as well as the captain, were 
more than half-seas-over before they started from the shore of Nor¬ 
mandy. Fitz-Stephen was in such a state at the wheel, that it seemed 
to him continually turning round, and the men employed in looking-out 
thought the Has de Catte —a well-known rock—had been doubled, when 
in fact the vessel was driving rapidly on to it. This recklessness soon led 
to a week, and the sole survivor was one Berold, a butcher of Rouen; 
who has reported the catastrophe w r ith so much accurate minuteness as 
to have deserved, though he never got it until now, the proud title of 
the father of the penny-a-liners. When Henry heard the news he 
fainted away, and never “ smiled as he was wont to smile ” from that 
day to the present. Being deprived of his only legitimate son, he became 
anxious to secure the throne to his daughter, the widow Maud, or 
Matilda, relict of the Emperor Henry the Fifth; and on Christmas- 
day, 1120, the bishops, abbots and barons were assembled at Windsor 


CHAP. III.l 


DEATH OF HENRY THE FIRST. 


70 


Castle to swear to maintain her succession. These parties—the respect¬ 
able families that “came in with the Conqueror'"—were all guilty of the 
grossest perjury, which, a few years ago, would have rendered them all 
liable to the pillory, and would in the present day expose them to 
serious punishment, A quarrel arose between Stephen, Earl of Bou¬ 
logne, the king’s legitimate nephew, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, his 
illegitimate son, as to which was entitled to swear first; the real object 
being to decide which, upon breaking their oaths—as they both fully 
intended to do—would take precedence as the successor of Henry 
After a good deal of desultory discussion, a division settled the point in 
the nephew’s favour. Anxious to see his daughter settled in life, Henry 
got her married, rather against her will, to Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou; who, 
from an odd custom he had of wearing a piece of broom in his cap, 
instead of a feather, acquired the nick-name of Plantagenet. The 
marriage was celebrated at Rouen, and Henry issued a proclamation 
ordering everybody to be merry. Long faces were thus entirely pro 
hibited, there was a penalty on black looks, and persons unable to laugh 
on the right side of their mouths were made to laugh upon the other. 

Some anxiety was, however, occasioned to Henry by the existence of his 
nephew, William Fitz-Robert, the son of Curt-hose, who had pretensions 
to the throne through Matilda, his grandmother, which of course gave 
him a claim on the friendship of the house of Baldwin, between whom 
and the Grandmother there was a close relationship. The apprehensions 
of Henry were aroused by William Fitz-Henry being made Earl of 
Flanders, but the young man was unfortunately killed by receiving a 
poke from a pike; and though the wound was only in the finger, it 
grew worse from being placed in the hands of ignorant practitioners. 
Finding it did not get better, he observed that it was “ really very mor¬ 
tifying,” and so it was, for mortification ensued almost immediately 
He died at St. Omer, on the 27th of July, 1128, in the twenty sixth 
year of his age; and if his epitaph had been written, it would have run 
thus:— 

“ Here lies a young Prince, whose life was cut short 
By medical quacks overturning the sand of it; 

His finger w r as wounded, hut who could have thought 
The doctors would make such a very bad hand of it?” 

Henry’s latter days were employed in listening to the quarrels of his 
daughter, Matilda, and her husband, who were never out of pickles, by 
reason of their family jars, which were very numerous. The king had 
resided four years abroad, and had been hunting, on the 25th of 
November, for the purpose of chasing sorrow as well as the game, when, 
on his return home, he insisted on eating a lamprey, against the orders 
of his physicians. The king did not agree with the doctors, and the 
lamprey did not agree with the king, who died on the 1st of December, 
1135, at the age of sixty-seven. 

Henry’s chief merit was his love of learning, which had got him the 
name of Beau-clerc, or the pretty scholar He loved the society of men 


80 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[LOOK II 


of letters, and of wild beasts; but the literary lions weve, perhaps, his 
greatest favourites. He nevertheless desired that these lions should 
only roar in his praise; for he punished Luke de Barre, a poet, very 
severely for having written some satirical verses, in which the king was 
made a laughing-stock. The poet, according to Orderic, burst from the 
executioners and dashed out his brains, which had been the cause of 
giving offence to his sovereign. 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

STEPHEN. 

If the oaths of the bishops and barons had been worth even the ink 
expended in alluding to them, there might have been some chance of 
Matilda coming quietly to the throne on the death of Henry. The 
Anglo-Normans, however, had as little respect for truth as for property, 
and were even destitute of the humbler virtue of gallantry towards the 
fair, for they began to clamour loudly against the notion of a woman 
reigning over them. 

Stephen, the late king’s nephew, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the 
illegitimate son of Henry, were the two favourites in the race for the 
throne ; but the betting was at least ten to one upon the former, in 
consequence of his having married Maud, the daughter and heir of 
Eustace, Count of Boulogne. 

On the arrival of Stephen in England, he made at once for the 
treasuiy, which he cleared completely out, and he devoted the proceeds 
to purchasing the fidelity, or rather the mercenary adherence, of the 
barons, prelates, and people. Having bribed a sufficiently numerous 
party, he procured a decent attendance at his Coronation, which took 
place on St. Stephen’s day, December 22, 1135, at Westminster. He 
sent a good round sum to the pope, Innocent the Second, whose inno¬ 
cence seems to have been chiefly nominal, for he was guilty of accepting 
a bribe to give a testimonial in favour of Stephen’s title. As long as 
the money lasted the barons were tolerably faithful; but “ no plunder 
no allegiance ” was the ordinary motto of the founders of those families 
whose present representatives trace themselves up, or rather biing 
themselves down, to the days of the Conquest. 

The Norman nobles complained that their perjury had not had its 
price, and began seizing various castles belonging to Stephen, who, by 
purchasing the services of other mercenaries, got his property back 
again. At length, however, a coalition was effected between Robert, 
Earl of Gloucester, and Matilda, his half-sister, who landed in England 
on the 1st of September, 1139, with a retinue of one hundred and forty 
knights, an empty purse, and very little credit. Several Norman 3 ran 
to meet Matilda on her arrival; but these high-minded founders of our 



CHAP. IV.] 


STEPHEN TAKEN PRISONER. 


81 


very first families, hearing that tliere was no cash, returned to the side 
of Stephen. 

Matilda went on a visit to the Queen Dowager, Adelais, or Alice, at 
Arundel Castle, which was besieged by the king, who, however, re¬ 
spected the property on account of its owner, and sent Matilda in safety 
to join her half-brother Robert, at Bristol, whither he had gone with 
twelve followers in search of Bristol board—and lodging. Stephen, 
having exhausted the materials for making the golden links which had 
hitherto bound the Normans to his side, found them rapidly adhering 
to Matilda, whose expectations were not bad, though her present means 
were limited. 

Qn the 2nd of February, 1141, the king was besieging Lincoln, when 
the whole of his cavalry wheeled round to the side of the enemy. 
Relying on his infantry, he put himself at their head, but treachery was 
on foot as well as on horseback. He nevertheless fought desperately, 
breaking his sword and battle-axe over the backs of his foes, till he was 
left fighting with the hilt of one weapon and the handle of the other 
Having lost the use of his arms, he was surrounded by the enemy, but 
he continued alive and kicking till the last, when he was taken prisoner 
He was cruelly thrown into a dungeon at Bristol, and in order that his 



muscular activity might be checked, he was loaded with irons. He still 
retained his cheerfulness, and may probably have been the original 

G 






















































































































































































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


82 


[BOOK II. 


composer of the celebrated “ hornpipe in fetters,” which is occasionally 
danced by dramatic prisoners. 

Matilda now scraped together all the money she could, to purchase 
that very marketable commodity, the allegiance of the Norman nobles 
and prelates. Among the latter was Stephen’s own brother, the Bishop 
of Winchester, who renounced his unfortunate relative, swore fidelity to 
Matilda, cursed all her enemies, and, as t*he price of all this swearing 
and cursing, received a large amount of church patronage. Not only 

did he crown his new mistress at Win¬ 
chester, but he crowned his own base 
ness by a slashing speech against his 
own brother, winding up with a fulsome 
puff for the new queen, whom he hailed 
as “ the sovereign lady of England and 
Normandy.” Matilda was by no 
means successful in handling the scep¬ 
tre, which required a stronger arm and 
more dexterity than she was mistress 
of. The Londoners, in particular, 
showed symptoms of revolt, and the 
Bishop of Winchester having got all 
he could from the queen, turned round 
once more in favour of his brother 
This episcopal roundabout was the first 
to set the example, so frequently fol¬ 
lowed in the present day, of blocking 
up the city; and it is an odd fact that 
paving was his pretext, for he stopped 
up the London thoroughfares in order 
to pave the way for the return of his 
brother to power. 

Matilda, who was in town—probably 
for the season—contrived to make 
her escape by the western suburb, with a small retinue. Some of 
her knights quitted her at the bridge which still retains their name ; 
an earl or two followed as far as Earl's Court; some turned off at 
Turnham Green ; but by the time she had reached the little Wick of 
Chis, her party had dwindled down into absolute insignificance. Her 
brother Robert was taken prisoner, and Stephen being also in captivity, 
the two parties were brought to a dead lock for want of leaders. By 
negociating a sort of Bill of Exchange, Robert was released, and Stephen 
was paid over, in the shape of “ value received,” to his own party. 

The Bishop of Winchester, who appears to have been an exceedingly 
plausible mob orator, now made another speech, in which he showed a 
wonderful amount of face by regularly turning his back upon himself, 
and unsaying all that he had said in favour of Maud, and against his 
brother on a former occasion. He swore and cursed as before, merely 













































CHAP IV.] 


DEATH OF STEPHEN. 


83 


altering the names of the objects of his oaths and execrations, for lie 
now swore allegiance to his brother instead of to Maud, and cursed the 
former’s, instead of the latter’s enemies. 

Stephen was accordingly raised, by the crane of circumstances, from 
the depth of his dungeon, and lifted on to his throne ; but he found a 
new rival in the person of Matilda’s son, Prince Henry, so that he had 
now a woman and a boy, instead of a mere woman to fight against. 
Henry, in a spirit of calculation far beyond his years, married Eleanor, 
the divorced wife of Louis VII.; but it was only for the sake of 
her money, which he expended in getting together an army for an 
attack upon England. The opposing forces met, but having already 
received their pay, they evinced a disposition to shirk their duty, and 
—like gentlemen of the bar, who having got their fees, propose that the 
matter should be referred to arbitration—the soldiers of Stephen and 
Henry recommended a quiet compromise. 

Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen, Bishop of Win¬ 
chester, were appointed referees, and it was agreed that Stephen should 
wear the crown with remainder over to Henry. A good deal of homage 
was interchanged, for Henry swore fealty to Stephen, and the son of 
the latter swore ditto to Henry. The king in fact cut off his own tail 
for the benefit of his former enemy, and Henry took a kind of post obit 
as a consideration for his not pressing his claims to the crown until the 
death of Stephen. The earls, barons, bishops, and abbots, also 
exchanged affidavits, and swore in direct opposition to what they had 
sworn before, making altogether a mass of peijury that would have kept 
the Central Criminal Court occupied for half-a-dozen entire sessions. 
Stephen, however, died at Dover, on the 25th of October, 1154, so that 
he did not live long under the new arrangement. 

The historian often finds himself awkwardly situated when called 
upon to give a character to a king, and there being a natural objection 
to written characters, the difficulty is greater on that account. It may 
be said for Stephen, that he was sober and industrious, tolerably honest, 
not addicted to gluttony, or given to drink like many of his predecessors, 
and of course, therefore, not so much accustomed to wait at table. He 
had a pleasing manner, and a good address, except while confined in 
prison, when his address was none of the pleasantest. On the whole, 
when we look at him as the paid servant of the public, we think him 
ill adapted for a steward, since England was always in confusion while 
under his care ; and as a coachman he was even worse, for he was quite 
unfitted to hold the reins of power. 


84 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 

HENRY THE SECOND, SURNAMED PLANTAGENET. 

enry, who was amusing himself with 
besieging a castle in Normandy, when 
he heard of Stephen’s death, soon re¬ 
paired to England with his middle-aged 
wife, Eleanor. They were crowned on 
the 19th of December, 1154 ; but he had 
no sooner got the crown on his head, 
than he went to business, and commenced 
a series of sweeping reforms. Finding 
the coinage reduced to a state of almost 
unutterable baseness, he issued a good 
supply of new money, and thus gave a 
fearful smash to the smashers. He drove 
out a quantity of foreign scamps, who 
had been made earls and barons in the 
reign of Stephen. After having enjoyed 
the fee-simple of castles and estates, 
they were sent back to take possession 
of the plough in tail, and to till as serfs 
the earth’s surface. Finding the royal income very much reduced, 
Henry restored it by taking back what his predecessors had given away; 
an operation he performed with so much impartiality, that he deprived 
his friends and his foes indiscriminately of all their possessions. 

The policy of Henry the Second, on coming to the throne, seems to 
have differed from that of most of his predecessors ; for while they had 
usually bought the allegiance of all the knaves and rogues about the 
Court, he preferred the less costly process of rendering them perfectly 
powei’less. He demolished many of the castles which had been erected 
by the barons, as fences rather than defences, for they were little better 
than receptacles for stolen property. Nor was he less vigorous in his 
measures against the clergy, for, like a skilful chess player, he felt that 
it is better for the king that the bishops and the castles should be got out 
of the way when they are likely to prove troublesome. So far, therefore, 
from encouraging the exactions of the priesthood, he seems to have kept 
a supply of industrious fleas, for the purpose of putting one now and 
then into the ear of such of the clergy as came to make unreasonable 
requests to him. It is said that, on one occasion, the Prior and monks 
of St. Swithin’s threw themselves prostrate before the King, imploring 
his protection against the Bishop of Winchester, who had cut off three 
meals a day from the ravenous fraternity. Henry perceiving that the 
monks were in tolerable condition inquired how many meals were still 











CHAP. V.] GLUTTONY OF THE MONKS OF ST. SWITHIN 85 

left to them. “ Only ten ! ” roared the Prior, in recitative, while the 
rest of the party took up the words in dismal chorus. 

How they could have contrived to demolish thirteen meals a day is 
an enigma to us ; but the fact is a wondrous proof of monkish ingenuity. 
In the days of ignorance all classes were prepared, no doubt, to swallow 
a great deal, but thirteen meals must have required a power of digestion 
and a force of appetite that throw into the shade even the Aldermanic 
attainments of a more civilised period. Henry, who took nothing but 
his breakfast, dinner, and tea, was shocked and startled by the awful 
avowal of gluttony on the part of the monks of St. Swithin, whom he 
placed at once upon a diet similar to his own, by reducing them to 
three meals per diem . It is probable that the monks crammed into 
three repasts the quantity they had consumed in thirteen, and thus 
eluded the force of the royal order. 

By a rigorous determination to “ stand no nonsense,” either with 
the clergy or the nobles, and by ordering the Flemish mercenaries of 
the army to the “ right about,” Henry seemed to commence his reign 
under very encouraging auspices. 





Henry II. dismissing the Foreign Barons. 


Mot consent with his successes at home, he sought to increase his 
influence abroad by taking Nantes, and he sent Thomas a Becket to 












































































































































86 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


Paris to bamboozle the French Court, lest his encroachments should 
excite jealousy in that quarter. Thomas a Becket was the son of Mr. 
Gilbert a Becket, a respectable tradesman of the city of London ; and 
as his appears to be the first mercantile name on record, we are justified 
in calling him the Father of British Commerce. The chronicles of the 
Times—and we are justified in relying on the united evidence of the 
Times and Chronicle —relate that Gilbert a Becket, in the way of 
business, followed the army to Palestine. What his business could 
have been we are unable to guess, but as it took him to the camp, he 
may perhaps have been a dealer in camp stools, or tent bedsteads. 
Mr. Gilbert a Becket unfortunately became a prisoner, and being sold 
to a rich Mussulman, fell in love with a young Mussul girl, his master's 
daughter. The affection was mutual, and the child of the Mussulman 
strained every muscle, or, at all events, every nerve to effect the escape 
of Gilbert a Becket, who, in the hurry of his departure, forgot to take 
the lady away with him. It is not unlikely that he had got half-way to 
London before he missed the faithful girl, and it would then have been 
the height of imprudence to return for the purpose of repairing the 
oversight. His inamorata made the best of her way after him, and 
arriving in London, ran about the streets, exclaiming, “ Gilbert! Gil¬ 
bert ! ” thus acting as her own crier, instead of putting the matter into 
the hands of the regular bellman. 


The fact of a young woman continually traversing the great metropolis 
with Gilbert in her mouth, soon reached the ears of Mr. a Becket, who 
found the female in distress and his own Saracen Maid to be the same 
individual. One of those frantic recognitions occurred, in which a rapid 
dialogue of “ No ! ” “ Yes ! ” “ It can't be ! ” “ It is ! ” “ My long-lost 
Sara—! ” “ My Gil—! ” is spasmodically gone through, and the couple 
having rushed into each other’s arms, were soon bound together by that 
firmest of locks familiarly known as wed-lock. The fruit of their union 
was the celebrated Thomas, of whose career we are enabled from peculiar 
sources to furnish some interesting particulars. 

Gilbert was determined to give his boy Tom a good education, and 
sent him to school at Merton Abbey, where a limited number of young 
gentlemen from three to eight were lodged, boarded, and birched—when 
necessary—at a moderate stipend. Young Tom was removed from Merton 
to a classical and commercial academy in London, which he quitted for 
Oxford, and he was ultimately sent to Paris to undergo the process of 
French polishing. While yet a young man, he got a situation in the 
office of the Sheriff, and became, of course, a Sheriff's officer; in which 
capacity he arrested, among other things, the attention of Theobald, 
Archbishop of Canterbury. His patron took young a Becket from the 
ad captandum pursuits in which he had been engaged, put him into the 
Church, gave him rapid preferment, and introduced him to the parties 
at the palace, which had, in those days, sufficient accommodation for the 
family and friends of royalty. Mr. a Becket became Chancellor of the 
kingdom, though he never held a brief, or had even been called to the 


CIIAP. V.] THOMAS ABECKETS PROGRESS THROUGH FRANCE. 


87 


bar; and he was appointed tutor to the Royal Family, in which office he 
no doubt had the assistance of the usher of the black rod. Of course, 
with his multiplicity of offices and occupations, it may be presumed that 
Mr. a Becket made a very excellent thing of it. His house was a 
palace, he drank nothing but the best wine, employed none but the best 
tailors, and when he went to Paris he took four-and-twenty changes of 
apparel—which may, perhaps, have been after all nothing more than 
two dozen shirts—so that he had a different costume for every hour oi 
the day. In his progress through France he was preceded by two 
hundred and fifty boys, or charity children, singing national songs. 
These were followed by his dogs, in couples, who no doubt gave tongue, 
and made a sort of barking accompaniment to the music that went 
before. 

Eight waggons came next, carrying his clothes and his crockery, his 
cooking apparatus, his bed and bedding, and his suite, when, after a few 
led horses, some knights with their esquires, and some monkeys d clieval 
with a groom behind, on his knees, came a Becket himself and his 



familiar friends.* His entry into a town was more like that of an 
equestrian troop about to establish a circus than of the Chancellor of 
England travelling in his master’s behalf. He lived on terms of the 
closest intimacy with the king, who made him Archbishop of Canter¬ 
bury, but not mi til thirteen months after the death of Theobald I., 
for Henry always kept a good appointment open as long as he could, 
that he might put the revenues into his own pocket. 

From the time of his promotion to the see of Canterbury, a Becket 
became an altered man. Fie cut his gay companions, discharged his 
clief de cuisine, discontinued his dealings with his West End tailor, and 
took to a kind of cheap blouse made of the coarsest sackcloth. He 

* Vide Fitz-Stephen, Secretary and Biographer of Thomas a Becket. 







88 


COMIC HlSiORY OF ENGLAND 


l BOOK II. 


abandoned his sumptuous mode of living and drank water made unsa¬ 
voury by herbs, victimising himself probably with cups of camomile tea, 
and copious doses of senna. But the most serious change in a Becket’s 
conduct, was his altered behaviour to the king, whom he had previously 
backed in all his attacks on the Church revenues. The new arch¬ 
bishop stood up for all the privileges of the clergy, and a difference of 
opinion between a Becket and the king, as to the right to try a 
delinquent clergyman in the civil courts, led to the summoning of a 
council of nobles and prelates (a.d. 1164) at Clarendon. Some rules 
were drawn up, called the “ Constitutions of Clarendon,” which a Becket 
reluctantly agreed to sign ; but Pope Alexander having rejected them, 
the archbishop withdrew his name from the list of subscribers. 

Finding the vengeance of the king likely to prove too much for him, 
a Becket quitted the kingdom, and was very hospitably entertained 
during his stay on the Continent. 

After an absence of about seven years, he returned in consequence of 
the King of France and others having persuaded Henry to make it up, 
though the reconciliation was never very cordial. Though a Becket was 
received with shouts of approbation by the mob, he was greeted, on his 
arrival, with menacing signs and abusive language from the aristocracy. 

There was a strong party against him at Court, and one evening, at 
about tea-time, Henry and a few nobles were sitting round the palace 
fire, gossiping over the subject of a Becket's awful insolence. The 
king burst into a furious diatribe, stigmatising the archbishop as a 
beggar, and winding up with the suggestive observation that, “Not one 
of the cowards I nourish at my table—not one will deliver me from this 
turbulent priest.” Four knights who were present took the royal hint, 
and gave the archbishop a call at his house in Canterbury, where 
having seated themselves unceremoniously on the floor, they got to high 
words very speedily. The archbishop refused to yield to low abuse, and 
went in the evening to vespers as usual. The feelings of the historian 
will not allow him to dwell much upon the denouement of the drama in 
which a Becket had played the principal character. Suffice it to say, 
he was murdered in Canterbury cathedral by four assassins, of whom 
Fitzurse—the son of a bear—was one, and Mireville, a name suggestive 
of mire and villany, was another. The two remaining butchers were 
Britto, of Saxon descent, a low fellow, familiarly termed the Brick, and 
Tracey, who is not worth the trouble of tracing. 

When Henry heard of this dreadful deed, he went without his dinner 
for three days, during which period he shut himself up in his own room, 
and refused to be “ at home ” to any one. 

By way of diverting his melancholy, he determined on joining in ar. 
Irish row, and finding the chiefs of the five principalities into which 
Ireland was divided at cross purposes, he espoused the cause of Dermot 
Me Murrough, who seems to have been what the Milesians would term 
the “biggest blackguard” amongst them. Henry gave him a letter 
authorising him to employ any of the subjects of England that happened 


CHAP. V.] 


fair Rosamond 


89 


to be disengaged ; and three ruined barons, with damaged reputations, 
chancing to be out of work in the neighbourhood of Bristol, were offered 
terms by Dermot. This precious trio consisted of two brothers, named 
Robert Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, and Richard de Clare, 
Earl of Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, though, as he was greatly 
addicted to falsehood, Longbow would have been a more appropriate 
name for him. 


After talking the matter over for some time without any arrangement 
being come to, Strongbow cut the matter short by exclaiming, “ I 11 
tell you what it is. If I m to fight for your kingdom, I must have it 
myself when you have done with it. You must make me your heir, 
and, as a security that you will perform your part of the agreement, I 
must marry your daughter.” Dermot, though rather taken aback by 
this proposal, invited Strongbow to a quiet chop, over which the latter's 
terms were acceded to; and the ruined baron, feeling that it was “ neck 
or nothing ” with him, succeeded in making it “ neck ” by the ardour 
with which he entered into the contest. Though he set to work in the 
spring of the year, his vengeance was truly summary, and in a few months 
he had restored everything to Dermot, who happened conveniently to 
die, and Strongbow came in for all that he had been fighting for. 

Henry having become jealous, Strongbow thought it good policy not 
to overshoot the mark, and came to England to offer allegiance. The 
king at first refused to see him, and on calling at Newnham, in Glou¬ 
cestershire, where Henry was staying, he was kept for some time eating 
humble-pie in the passage with the hall-porter. Strongbow having been 
sufficiently bent by this treatment, was at length asked to step up, and 
it was arranged that he should accompany the king to Ireland, surrender 
his possessions, and consent to hold them as the vassal of the English 
sovereign. t 


On his return to England, Henry, who had four sons, began to find 
“ the boys ” exceedingly troublesome. Their mother, once the middle- 
aged, but now the ancient Eleanor, had grown cross as well as venerable; 
and being exceedingly jealous of her husband, encouraged his own sons 
to wony him. Her jealousy had become a perfect nuisance; and 
jealousy is unfortunately one of those nuisances which never get abated. 

A story is told of a certain Fair Rosamond; and, though there is no 
doubt of its being a story from beginning to end, it is impossible to 
pass it over in an English History. Henry, it is alleged, was enamoured 
of a certain Miss Clifford—if she can be called a certain Miss Clifford, 
who was really a veiy doubtful character. She had been the daughter 
of a baron on the banks of the Wye, when, without a why or a wherefore, 
the king took her away, and transplanted the Flower of Hereford, as 
she well deserved to be called, to the Bower of Woodstock. In this 
Bower he constructed a labyrinth, something like the maze at Rosher- 
vnle; and as there was no man stationed on an elevation in the centre 
to direct the sovereign with a pole which way to go, nor exclaim, 
“ Right, if you please ! ” “ Straight on! ” “ You re right now, sir ! ” 


90 


COMIC II[STORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


“ Left! ” “ Eight again I ” &c. &c., his majesty had acioptea the plan 
of dragging one of Rosamond’s reels of silk along with him when he 
left the spot, so that it formed a guide to him on his way back again. 

This tale of the silk is indeed a most precious piece of entanglement; 
but it was perhaps necessary for the winding up of the story. While 
we cannot receive it as part of the thread of history, we accept it as a 
means of accounting for Eleanor having got a clue to the retreat of 
Rosamond. 

The queen, hearing of the silk, resolved naturally enough to unravel 
it. She accordingly started for Woodstock one afternoon, and, sus¬ 
pecting something wrong, took a large bowl of poison in one hand, and 



Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond. 


a stout dagger in the other. Having found Fair Rosamond, she held 
the poignard to the heart, and the bowl to the lips of that unfortunate 
young person, who, it is said, preferred the black draught to the steel 
medicine 





























































CHAP. V.] 


HENRY VISITS A’BECKET’s TOMB. 


91 


That such a person as Fair Rosamond existed is perfectly true, for 
she was buried at Godstow, near Oxford. The sensitive heart, which is 
ever anxious to inundate the page of sorrow with a regular Niagara of 
tears, is however earnestly requested to turn off the rising supply from 
the main of pity, for it is agreed on all hands that the death of Rosa¬ 
mond was perfectly natural. It has been convenient for the romancists 
to cut short her existence by drowning it in the bowl; but truth compels 
us to add, that there is no ground for such a conclusion. 

Henry devoted the remainder of his life to quarrelling, first with one 
of his children, then the other, and every now and then with all of 
them. He fully intended to divide his possessions among them; but 
they most unreasonably required to be let into possession before the 
death of the governor. The eldest ran away to France, and Eleanor 
had actually put on male attire, with the intention of abandoning 
Henry, when, unfortunately for him, he was silly enough to have her 
imprisoned for the purpose of stopping her. “ Why didn’t you let her 
go ! ” was the frequent exclamation of his intimate friends to the king, 
and a melancholy “ Ha! I wish I had,” was the only reply he was 
able to make to them. 

Finding himself threatened on all sides, and when he had exhausted 
every other expedient, he resolved on trying what penitence could do 
for him. His conscience no doubt often reminded him of the murder 
of poor a Becket, to whose shrine the king determined on making a 
pilgrimage. Purchasing some split peas, he put about a pint in each of 
his stockings, and started for Canterbury, where he threw himself madly 
upon a Becket’s tomb, sobbing, yelling, and shrieking in the most 
pitiable manner. Nor was this enough, for he threw off his robe, and 
insisted on receiving the lash from about eighty ecclesiastics. Though 
they administered the punishment so lightly that the cat caused only a 
few scratches, the peculiar circumstances attending it cause it to stand 
out in history as par excellence “ the great flogging case.” 

The ecclesiastical authorities at Canterbury taking advantage of 
Henry’s softened heart, which seems to have been accompanied by a sad 
softness of head, succeeded in extracting from him a promissory note 
to pay forty pounds a year for keeping lights constantly burning on the 
tomb of a Becket. There can be no doubt that the contract for lighting 
was taken cheaply enough by some tradesman of the town, and that the 
surplus went into the clerical coffers. Posterity regards with disgust 
the effrontery of the monks in making—for the sake of a few dips— 
such an enormous dip into the purse of the sovereign. 

From this time affairs began to mend; and it would seem that the 
whipping his majesty had suffered had whipped his misfortunes 
completely out of him. If the king had been an old carpet the beating 
he received could not have proved more beneficial than it did, for it 
seemed to revive the brighter colours of his existence. He employed 
the peace he now enjoyed in carrying out some political reforms, divided 
England into six circuits, so that Justice might be brought home to 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


92 

every man’s door; though, like everything else that is brought home to 
one’s door, it must be paid for—sometimes after a little credit, but 
sometimes on delivery. He abolished the criminal tariff, by which it 
had been allowable for the rich to commute their offences, according to 
a certain scale of charges. Family quarrels unfortunately called him 
away from these wholesome pursuits, and his eldest son died of a fever 
brought on in consequence of a disagreement with his younger brother, 
Richard. Prince Henry expired on the 11th of June, 1183, in the 
twenty-seventh year of his age. Such was his remorse, that, according 
to Roger Hoveden, he insisted on his attendants tying a rope to his foot 
and taking him in tow, until they dragged him out of his bed, in order 
to deposit him on a bed of ashes. This singular desire to die in a dust- 
hole was accompanied by a request for a reconciliation with his father, 
who sent a ring as a token of forgiveness, w T itli a message that he hoped 
the invalid might come, like the ring, completely round. 

On the death of their elder brother, Richard and Geoffrey still con¬ 
tinued to show fight against their father; who at length got so much 
the worst of it, that he was obliged to make the best of it by coming to a 
compromise. By one of the conditions he was to pardon all the insurgent 
barons, and having called for a list of them, found at the bottom of it 
the name of his favourite son John. This was too much for the perse¬ 
cuted parent, who flew into a furious passion, which he vented in the 
customary manner of royalty at that period, by pouring out a volley of 
execrations with frightful fluency. He jumped on to his bed, and, 
falling back upon it, turned round to the wall, exclaiming, “ Now then, 

let everything go - as it will.” Several ministers, priests, 

bishops, prelates, and barons were in attendance, under pretence of 
receiving his last sigh, but really with the intention of robbing him of 
his last shilling, for they rifled his pockets directly life was extinct. 

The reign of Henry, though not very comfortable to himself, was 
undoubtedly beneficial to his country. He introduced many improve¬ 
ments into the law, and was the first to levy a tax on the goods of 
nobles as well as commoners, for the service of the state. He died at 
the Castle of Chinon, near Saumur, on the 6th of July, 1189, in the 
fifty-sixth year of his age. He left behind him a good name, which 
those w T ho stole his purse were fortunately not able to filch from him. 
His wife caused all the quarrels in his family, showing that a firebrand * 
may grow out of a very bad match. Eleanor was indeed a female 
Lucifer, lighting up the flame of discord between parent and children, 
until death gave her husband the benefit of a divorce. 


.i * 








CHAP. VI. 1 


CORONATION OK RICHARD THE FIRST 


93 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH 

RICHARD THE FIRST, SURNAMED CCEUR DE LION 

i chard having secured the crown began 
to look after the cash, and pounced 
upon an unhappy old man named Ste¬ 
phen, of Tours, who had acted as 
-\ treasurer to Henry the Second. The 
new king, not satisfied with cashiering 
. - — the cashier, arrested him and threw 
him into prison, until he had given up 
not only all the late king’s money, but 
had parted with every penny of his 
own, which was extracted in the shape 
of costs from the unfortunate victim. 

Richard, on arriving in England, 
made for Winchester, where the sove¬ 
reigns were in the habit of keeping 
their plate and jewels, all of which 
were turned at once into ready money 
in order to enable him to carry on the 
war, which he was very anxious to do, as a crusader in Palestine. 
It would seem that the treasury was regularly emptied at the com¬ 
mencement of every new reign, and filled again as speedily as possible 
by exactions on the people. 

The coronation of Richard, which took place on the 3rd of September, 

1189, was disgraced by an attack upon the Jews, who came to offer pre¬ 
sents, which were eagerly received; but the donors were kicked out of 
Westminster Hall with the most ruthless violence. Nearly all the Jews 
in London were savagely murdered, all their houses were burnt and all 
their property stolen ; when Richard issued a proclamation, in which he 
stated that he took them under his gracious protection : an act which 
would have been more gracious if it had come before instead of after the 
extermination of the ill-used Israelites. 

How to go to Palestine was, however, the king’s sole care; and to 
raise the funds for this trip he sold everything he possessed, as well as 
a great deal that rightfully belonged to others. He put up towns, 
castles, and fortresses to public auction, knocking down not only the 
property itself but those also who offered any remonstrance, or put hi 
any claim to the goods he was disposing of. Such was his determina¬ 
tion to clear off everything without reserve, that he swore he would put 
up London itself if he could find a bidder—an assertion that was very 
likely to put up the citizens. 











94 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


Some of the castles lie sold two or three times over, leaving the pur¬ 
chasers to settle among themselves which should be the possessorof the 
property that had been paid for by every one of them. It is not unlikely 
that he caused glowing advertisements to be prepared, of “ Little 
Paradises,” standing “ in their own fortifications ; ” and that he would 
have described a dead wall with a moat before it as “ Elysium on a 
small scale,” entrenched behind its own battlements. There can be 
little doubt that he would also have dilated in glowing terms upon the 
wealth of the neighbourhood offering unlimited pillage to an enterprising 
purchaser. 

Richard’s presence-chamber was, according to Sir Francis Palgrave, 
a regular market-overt, in wdiicli prerogatives and bounties were to be 
purchased by any one coming with the money to pay for them. We can 
fancy a table laid out with a number of patents of nobility, labelled with 
a large ticket, announcing “All these titles at an enormous sacrifice.” 
We can imagine a row of velvet robes and coronets hanging up under a 
placard inscribed “ Dukedoms at a considerable reduction;” while we 
can contemplate a quantity of knights’ helmets lying in the window, 
marked at a very low figure, after the manner of the 5000 straw bonnets 
offered to the public by some dashing haberdasher at the commence¬ 
ment of the spring season. 

Richard even went so far as to announce the stock of vacant 
bishoprics as “ selling off;” and it is not improbable that he may have 
caused tasteful arrangements of mitres and lawn sleeves to be arranged 
in different parts of the presence-chamber, to tempt the ambition of 
ecclesiastical purchasers. He likewise sold his own good-will for 
three thousand marks to his half-brother Geoffrey, who had been 
elected Archbishop of York; and wherever there was a penny to be 
turned, Richard had the knack of turning it. 

Having left the regency in the hands of one Hugh Pudsey, the king 
repaired to France to meet Philip, who was to be his companion to 
Palestine. Their united forces amounted to a hundred thousand men ; 
but Richard and Philip did not travel together farther than Lyons, and 
indeed it was as well they did not, for they were almost continually 
quarrelling. Numerous adventures befel Richard on his way; but the 
most awkward was his being dunned by the cardinal bishop of Ostia 
—where he had put in to repair—for a debt due to the see of Rome, 
on account of bulls and other papal articles. 

Coeur de Lion, instead of discharging the bill, abused and ill-treated 
the applicant, and made the best of his way to Naples, before there 
was time for ulterior proceedings. He went thence to Sicily, where 
his quarrel with Philip was renewed, and the latter demanded an 
explanation of Richard’s refusal to marry the princess Aliz, the French 
king’s sister. Cceur de Lion, who had really formed another attach¬ 
ment, excused himself by blackening the character of the lady to whom 
he had been engaged, and her chivalrous brother agreed to take two 
thousand marks a year, as a compromise for the breach of promise of 





/ 


























































































































































CHAP. VI.j RICHARD ARRIVES IN PALESTINE. 95 

marriage which Richard had committed. “ Such,” exclaims Hume— 
and well he may—“ were the heroes of this pious enterprise.” 

The Princess Aliz or Alice, having been regularly thrown overboard 
by the bargain between her own brother and her late lover, the latter 
was at liberty to follow his inclination by marrying Berengaria, 
daughter of the King of Navarre, with whom he had had a flirtation as 
early as during his residence at Guienne. Taking with him his 
latest affianced, he set sail for Palestine; hut his ship being cast ashore 
at Cyprus, and plundered by the natives, he waited to chastise the 
people, and imprison an elderly person named Isaac, who called himself 
the Emperor. He then ran off with the old man’s only daughter, in 
addition to the Princess of Navarre, whom he had the coolness to marry 
on the very spot from which he had seized this new addition to the 
female part of his establishment. The only reparation offered to the 
father was a set of silver fetters to wear instead of the common iron, he 
had at first been thrown into. 

Richard at length arrived in Palestine, and was not long in getting 
to work against the forces of Saladin, who, leading forth his battalions, 
mounted on their real Jerusalem ponies, proved exceedingly harassing. 

Among the events of the crusade undertaken for the promotion of 
Christianity, on the side of the Lion-heart, his beheading of five thou¬ 
sand Turkish prisoners stands conspicuous. This act of barbarity arose 
out of some misunderstanding on the subject of a truce, and Saladin, by 
w T ay of making matters square, slaughtered about an equal number of 
captive Christians. Such were the heroic defenders of the Cross on one 
side and the Crescent on the other. It is generally a libel to compare 
a human being to a brute, hut in giving the title of Lion-heart to 
Richard, the noble beast is the party scandalised. It is surprising that 
the British Lion has never cited this as one of his numerous grievances, 
for he would certainly have a capital action for defamation if he were to 
sue by his next friend or in forma pauperis for this malicious imputa¬ 
tion on his noble character. 

On the 7th of September, 1191, the tw r o chiefs came to a general 
engagement, near Azotus, about nine miles from Ascalon. Richard’s 
prowess was tremendous; hut, after himself, the most striking object was 
liis battle-axe. This wondrous weapon had been forged in England by 
the very best Smiths, and there were twenty pounds of steel in the head, 
formed into a tremendous nob, which fell with fearful force on the nobs 
of his enemies. His battle-axe divided with him the attention of all 
beholders, and he divided the turbans of the foe with his battle-axe. 
The weapons of the crusaders were certainly better adapted for havoc 
than those of the Saracens, who seem to have fought with an instrument 
less calculated for milling men than for milling chocolate. The armour 
of the knights was also more effective than that of their adversaries; for 
while the former had their heads comfortably secured in articles made 
on the principle of rushlight shades, with holes for seeing and breathing 
through, the partisans of the Crescent wore little more upon their heads 


96 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK II. 


than might have been supplied by the folding of a sheet or table-cloth 
into the form of a turban. The result was that Saladin was compelled 
to fly, with a loss of seven thousand men and thirty-two emirs, which 
so diminished his stock of officers that he was almost reduced, according 
to an old chronicler, to his very last emir-gency. 

Richard went on to Jaffa, where he was delayed by an artful propo¬ 
sition to negotiate until the rainy weather set in; and he had to start off 
during November, in the midst of incessant showers. The Crusaders 
got regularly soaked; and being caught in the middle of the plain of 
Sharon with no place, not even a doorway, they could stand up under, 
they tried to pitch a tent, which was instantly pitched down by the fury 
of the elements. Their arms became perfectly rusty, and their horses, 
not liking the wet, got rusty also. Their provisions were all turned 
into water souchet, and indeed the spirit of the Crusaders became 
weakened by excessive dilution in the pelting showers. 

The energies of Richard and his companions were of course consi 
derably damped; but a positive inundation would scarcely have 
quenched the fire of chivalry. Cceur de Lion retreated to Ascalon, the 
fortifications of which he found had been dismantled; but he worked to 
restore them like a common mason, mixing mortar on his shield for 
want of a hod, and using his axe as a substitute for a trowel. All the 
men of rank followed his example, except the Duke of Austria, who 
declared that he had not been brought up to it; upon which Cceur de 
Lion kicked him literally through the breach in the fortification he had 
refused to repair, and turned him out of the town with all his vassals. 

After a most uncomfortable sojourn in Palestine, Richard opened a 
negotiation with Saladin; and the ardour of both having been rather 
cooled, a truce was concluded. It was to last three years, three months, 
three weeks, and three days, the discussion on the subject occupying 
about three hours, the writing out the agreement three minutes, and the 
signing three seconds. 

Taking advantage of the truce, Richard quitted Palestine for England; 
but sending the ladies home in a ship, he started to walk in the disguise 
of a pilgrim by way of Germany. Though his costume was humble his 
expenditure was lavish; and having sent a boy into the market-place of 
Vienna to buy some provisions, the splendid livery of the page, and his 
abundance of cash, excited suspicion as to the rank of his master. The 
secret of the Lion heart was kept for some time by the faithful tiger, 
but he was at length forced into a confession, and Richard was arrested 
on the 20th December, 1193, by the very Duke of Austria whom he 
had some time before kicked unceremoniously out of Ascalon. 

The Emperor Henry VI. claimed the royal captive as a prize, and 
Richard was locked up in a German dungeon with German shutters, 
and fed alternately on German rolls and German sausages, while 
his enemies were doing their worst at home and abroad to deprive 
him of his sovereignty. 


CHAP. VI.j 


IMPRISONMENT OF RICHARD I. 


97 


There is a legend attached to the incident of Richard’s captivity, 
which has the slight disadvantage of being altogether fabulous, and 
we therefore insert it—under protest—in the pages of our faithful 
history. The story runs that the Lion Heart, who was fond of music, 
and had a tolerable voice, used to amuse himself and his gaolers by 
singing some of the most popular ballads of the period. It happened 
that Blondel, one of his favourite minstrels, of whom he had probably 
taken lessons in happier hours, was on an ambulatory tour, for pro¬ 
fessional purposes, when he chanced to tune his clarionet and clear his 



Blondel, the Minstrel, under the walls of Richard’s Prison. 


throat, with the intention of “ striking up” under the walls of Richard’s 
prison. At that moment the Lion Heart had just been called upon for 
a song, and his voice issued in a large octavo volume from the window 
of his dungeon. The tones seemed familiar to the minstrel, but wher. 
there came a tremendous trill on the low G, followed by a succession of 
roulades on A flat, with an abrupt modulation from the minor to the 
major key, Professor Blondel instantly recognised the voice of his royal 
pupil. The wandering minstrel, without waiting for the song to termi¬ 
nate, broke out into a magnificent sol fa , and the king at once remem 

H 







































































































98 


COMIC Eli,TORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


bering the style of his old master, responded by going through some 
exercises for the voice which he had been in the habit of practising. 
Blondel having ascertained the place of his sovereign’s confinement, had 
the prudence to “ copy the address,” and went away, determining to do 
his utmost for the release of Richard. “ I wish,” thought the professor, 
as he retired from the spot, “ that those iron bars were bars of music, 
for then I could show him how they are to be got through ; or would 
that any of the keys of which I am master would unlock the door of his 
prison! ” With these two melancholy puns, induced by the sadness of 
his reflections, Blondel hastened from the spot, and repaired to England 
with tidings of the missing monarch. 

Such is the romantic little story that is told by those greatest of 
story tellers, the writers of history. 

Richard was at length brought up for examination before the Diet of 
Worms; and though several charges were alleged against him, he 
pleaded his own cause with so much address, that he was discharged 
on payment of a fine of one hundred and fifty thousand marks, 
being about three hundred thousand pounds of our money. He 
at once put down thirteen and fourpence in the pound, giving good 
bills and hostages for the remainder; but the amount was soon raised by 
taxes and voluntary contributions from the English people. Churches 
melted down their plate, people born with silver spoons in their mouths 
came forward with zeal, whether the article happened to be a gravy, a 
table, a dessert, or a tea; and the requisite sum was raised to release 
him from captivity. He arrived in England on the 20th of March, 
1194, and was enthusiastically welcomed home, where he got up another 
coronation of himself, by way of furnishing an outlet for the overflowing 
loyalty of the people. As if desirous of taming it down a little, he 
made some heavy demands upon their pockets; but nothing seemed 
capable of damping the ardour of the nation, which appeared ready to 
give all it possessed in change for this single sovereign. 

About the middle of May, 1194, Richard revisited Barfleur, with the 
intention of chastising his brother John—who had shown symptoms of 
usurpation in his absence—and the French king, Philip. John, like a 
coward, flew to his mamma—the venerable Eleanor—requesting her to 
intercede for him. The old lady wrote a curt epistle, consisting of the 
words, “ Dear Dick—Forgive Jack. Yours ever, Nell; ” and John 
having fallen at the feet of Richard, was contemptuously kicked aside 
with a free pardon. Against the French king, however, several battles 
were fought, with fluctuating success, though Richard's fortunes now and 
then received a fillip which caused Philip to get the worst of it. A truce 
was concluded on the 23rd of July, 1194, but London beginning to 
rebel, cut out fresh work for Lion Heart. The discontented cockneys 
had for their leader one William Fitz-Osbert, commonly called Long- 
beard, who complained of the citizens having been too closely shaved by 
taxation ; and Longbeard even dared to beard the sovereign himself, by 
going to the continent to remonstrate with Richard. The patriot made 


CHAP. VI.] LONGBEARD -RICHARD’S DEATH-WOUND. 09 

one of those clap-trap speeches for which mob-orators have in all ages 
been famous, and demanded for the poor that general consideration which 
really amounts to nothing particular. Richard promised that the matter 
should be looked into, but nothing was done—except the people and 
their advocate. In the year 1196 Longbeard originated the practice of 
forming political associations, and got together no less than fifty-two 
thousand members, who swore to stand by him as the advocate and 
saviour of the poor ; an oath which ended in their literally standing by 
him and seeing him savagely butchered by his enemies. He was taking 
a quiet walk with only nine adherents, when he was dodged by a couple 
of citizens, who had been watching him for several days, and who pre 
tended to be enjoying a stroll, until they got near enough to enable them 
to seize the throat of Longbeard. This movement instantly raised his 
choler, and drawing his knife, he succeeded in cutting completely away 
He sought' refuge in the church of St. Mary of Arches, which he barri 
caded for four days, but he was at last taken, stabbed, dragged at a 
horses tail to the Tower, and forwarded by the same conveyance to 
Smithfield, where he was hanged on a gibbet, with the nine unfortunates 
who had been the companions of his promenade. The mob, who had 
stood by him while he was thus cruelly treated, pretended to look upon 
him as a martyr directly he was dead. This, however, seems to have 
been the result of interested motives, for they stole the gibbet, and cut 
it up into relics, which were sold at most exorbitant prices; so that, by 
making a saint of him, they gave a value to the gallows which they pur 
loined. It is possible that they were not particular as to the genuineness 
of the article, so long as there was any demand for little bits of Long- 
beard’s gibbet. 

Richard was now engaged in almost continual quarrels with Philip, 
which were only suspended by occasional want of money to pay the 
respective barons, who always struck, or rather, refused to strike at all, 
when they could not get their wages. In the year 1198, hostilities 
were renewed with great vigour, and a battle was fought near Gisors, 
where Philip was nearly drowned by the breaking of a bridge, in 
consequence of the enormous weight of the fugitives. In his bulletin, 
Richard insultingly alluded to the quantity of the river the French king 
had been compelled to drink, and hinted, that as he was full of water it 
was quite fair to make a butt of him. 

This was Cceur de Lion’s “ positively last appearance ” in any combat. 
A truce was concluded, and Richard quitted Normandy for the Limousin, 
where it was said in one of the popular ballads of the day, that the 
point of the arrow was being forged for the death of the tyrant. Many 
dispute the point, and believe the story to be forged ; but certain it is, 
that Henry, the father of Richard, had frequently been shot at by an 
arrow, and had had, according to a lame pun of the period, many 
a-n-arrow escape from the hands of his secret enemies. According to 
the usual version of Cceur de Lion’s death, it seems that he went with 

h 2 


> 


* > * 


100 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


an armed force to demand of Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, a treasure, 
said to have been found in the domains of the latter. The viscount 
claimed halves, which Richard refused, and with a loud cry of— 
“ All or none,” threatened to hang every man of the garrison. The king 
was surveying the walls to ascertain an eligible place for the assault, 
and had just raised his eyes, exclaiming—“ Here s a weak point,” when 
the point of an arrow came whizzing along, and stuck in his left shoulder. 
Richard making some passing allusion to this novel mode of shouldering 
arms, took little notice of the wound, but went on with the assault, and 
soon seized the castJe 

The business of the day being concluded, he sent for a surgeon, who 
took out the point of the arrow somewhat clumsily, causing Richard to 
remark, in allusion to the bungling manner in which the operation had 
been performed, that it could not be called a very elegant extract. The 
wound though slight, became worse from ill-treatment; and the king, 
feeling that there were no hopes of his recovery, would only reply to the 
encouraging remarks of his attendants by pointing mournfully yet 
significantly over his left shoulder. 



Bertrand de Gourdon before Richard. 


v 


•) 

o '> 










































































































































DEATH OF RICHARD 


101 


CHAP. VI.] 

It is said that he sent for Bertrand de Gourdon, the youth that 
indicted the wound, and let him off for letting off the how ; but it is 
impossible to say what truth there is in this anecdote. The MS. 
chronicle of Winchester says that Richard's sister Joan expressed a 
truly female wish to have the prisoner given to her, that she might 
“ tear his eyes out,” and that she literally put in force this threat 
which so many women are heard to make, but which not one of the sex 
was ever known to execute. 

Richard died on Tuesday, the 6th of April, 1199, after a reign of ten 
years, not one of which had been passed in England, for he had led the 
life of a royal vagabond. He died at forty-two, and it is a remarkable 
fact, says one of the Chroniclers—whom for the sake of his reputation 
we will not name—that, though Richard lived to be forty-two, forti-tude 
was the only virtue he had ever exhibited. He loved the name of Lion 
Heart, and he certainly 
deserved a title that 
indicated his possession 
of brutish qualities. 

The British lion might, 
in justice to his own 
character, repudiate all 
connection with this 
contemptible Coeur-de 
Lion, who had at least 
as much cruelty as cou¬ 
rage, and who had mur¬ 
dered many more in 
cold blood when prison¬ 
ers than he had ever 
killed on the field of 
battle. His slaughter 
of the three thousand 
Saracen captives must 
be regarded as a proof, 
that, whatever of the 
lion he might have had 
in his disposition, he 
had not much of the heart. This, however, such as it was, he never 
gave to England in his lifetime, and he left it to Rouen at his death, 
being certainly the very smallest and most valueless legacy he could 
possibly have bequeathed. 



Arrival of Richard's Legacy at Rouen. 















































































































102 


COMIC HISTORY OK ENGLAND 


[BOOK II. 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. 

♦ 

JOHN, SURNAMED SANSTERRE, OR LACKLAND. 

)hn, who was in Normandy when 
Richard died, made every effort 
to secure that gang of humbugs, 
the mercenaries, by sending over 
to offer them an increase of 
salary, with the view of preventing 
them from taking engagements in 
the cause of his nephew, Arthur, 
the child of his elder brother, 
Geoffrey. Hubert Walter, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, was 
despatched to England, to obtain 
the services of the barons by the 
usual means; and John himself 
repaired to Chinon, to ransack 
the castle where Richard had kept 
his treasures. Having chastised 
a few citizens for supporting Arthur, he repaired to Rouen, where on Sun¬ 
day, the 25th of April, 1199, he was bedizened with the sword and coronal 
of the duchy. The English were not much disposed to favour the 
claims of John, but Archbishop Hubert purchased a few oaths of alle¬ 
giance from the barons and prelates, who for the usual consideration 
were always ready to swear fealty to any one. 

John landed at Shoreham on the 25th of May, and on the 27th be 
knocked at the church door of St. Peter’s, Westminster, to claim the 
crown. He seems to have encountered a tolerably numerous congrega¬ 
tion, whom he endeavoured to convince by pulling out of his pocket 
an alleged will made in his favour by his brother Richard, and some 
other documents, which, backed by a speech from Archbishop Hubert, 
set everybody shouting “ Long live the King ! ” 

Poor little Arthur was completely overlooked in this arrangement, 
for he had scarcely anyone to take his part but a noisy scolding mother, 
who bore the name of Constance, probably on account of her shameful 
inconstancy. She had married a third husband while her second was 
still living; and it is even said that she contemplated adding trigamy 
to bigamy, for which purpose she sent her son to be out of the way at 
Paris, with Philip, the French king. The poor child had his interests 
fearfully sacrificed on all sides, for a treaty was agreed upon between 
John and Philip, according to which there would be nothing at all 
left for the unfortunate boy when the two sovereigns had helped them 
selves to their respective shares of the booty. 





















CHAP. VII.] 


JOHN.-RESCUES ELEANOR, &C. 


103 


In the summer of the year 1200, -John made a royal progress into 
France, where he evinced a familiar and festive humour, which made 
him a favourite with a few of the “jolly dogs,” but did not win the 
respect of the more sober classes of the community. He did not at all 
improve upon acquaintance ; and he completed his unpopularity by 
running away with Isabella, the wife of the Count of La Marche, whom 
he married and brought to England, in spite of his having already a 
■wife at home, and the lady’s having also a husband abroad. A second 
coronation was performed in honour of his second marriage; but he 
seems to have soon got tired of his new match, for he marched into 
Aquitaine without his wife, under the pretence that he had business to 
attend to, but he really did no business at all. Little did he anticipate 
when he started en gargon on his tour, that the historian nearly seven 
centuries afterwards would be recording the manner in which he passed 
his time, and proving the hollowness of the excuse for leaving his wife 
behind him when he took his trip to Aquitaine. 

Young Arthur, who was but fifteen years of age, was advised by 
Philip, (a.d. 1202,) to try his hand in a military expedition. “ You know 
your rights,” said Philip to the youth, “and would you nof be a king?” 
“ Oh ! wouldn’t I, just? ” was the boy-like reply, and the French king 
counting off 200 knights, as if they were so many bundles of wood, 
handed them over to the prince, telling him to go and make an attack 
upon some of the provinces. Arthur was recommended to march 
against Mirabeau, the residence of his grandmother, Eleanor, a violent 
old lady who had always been unfavourable to his claims. Arthur took 
the town, but not his grandmother, who, on hearing of the lad’s inten¬ 
tions, exclaimed, “ Hoity toity! would the urchin teach his grandmother 
to suck eggs, I wonder? ” “ No, but I would teach my grandmother to 
sue cumb,” was the dignified reply of the prince, when the message of 
his venerable relative was brought to him. The sturdy old female, who 
was rather corpulent, made, literally, a stout resistance, having thrown 
herself into a strong tower, which set rather tight upon her, like a 
corsage, and in this position she for some time defied the assaults of the 
enemy. Encased in this substantial breastwork, she awaited the 
threatened lacing at the hands of her grandson, when John came to her 
rescue. In the night between the 31st of July and the 1st of August, 
he took the town, dragged Arthur out of his bed, as well as some two 
hundred nobles who were “hanging out” at the different lodgings in the 
city. After cruelly beating them, he literally loaded them with irons, 
giving them cuffs first, and hand-cuffs immediately afterwards. Twenty- 
two noblemen were thrown into the damp dungeons of Corfe Castle, 
where they caught severe colds, of which they soon died, and they were 
buried under the walls of Corfe without coffins.* Young Arthur’s 

* Matthew Paris. It is to be regretted that the statement of a fact sometimes involves 
the necessity for a pun, as in the present instance. The faithful historian has, however, 
on such an occasion, no alternative. Fidelity must not be sacrificed even to a desire for 
solemnity. 


104 


COMIC HISTORY Ob ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II 


tragical end has been the subject of various conjectuies. Several 
historians have tried their hands at an interesting version of the young 



Prince's death, but Shakspeare has given the most effective, and not the 
least probable, account of the fate of Arthur. The monks of Margan 
believe that John, in a fit of intoxication, slew his nephew; but we have 
no proof that Lackland was often in that disgraceful state, which in 
these days would have rendered him liable to the loss of a crown—in 
the shape of the five-shilling fine for drunkenness. 

Ralph, the abbot of Coggeshall, who agrees with Shakspeare in many 
particulars, says, that Arthur had been removed to Rouen, where his 
uncle called for him on the night of the 3rd of April, 1203, in a boat, to 
take a row on the river. It being time for all good little children to be 
in bed and asleep, Arthur was both at the moment of the avuncular visit. 
Boy like, he made no objection to the absurd and ill-timed excursion, for 





























































































































































CHAP VII.] 


DEATH OP ARTHUR. 


ior> 


it is a curious fact, that infants are always ready to get up at the most 
unseasonable hours, if anything in the shape of pleasure is proposed to 
them. Arthur was soon in the boat for a row up the Seine with his 
uncle John and Peter de Maulac, Esquire, one of the unprincipled 
“ men about town ” at that disreputable period. 

They had not proceeded far when either John or Mr. de Maulac 
seized the boy, as if he were so much superfluous ballast, and cruelly 
pitched him overboard. Some say that the squire was the sole exe¬ 
cutioner, while others hint that he turned squeamish at the last moment, 
and left the disgraceful business to John; but they doubtless shared 
the guilt, as they were both rowing in the same boat, and were in point 
of private character “much of a muchness.” Shakspeare, as everybody 
knows, makes the young Prince meet his death more than half-way by 
leaping on to the stones below his prison window, with a hope that they 
might prove softer than the heart of his uncle. It is not improbable 
that a child so young may have been foolish enough to jump to such a 
conclusion. 

The rumour of the murder naturally occasioned the greatest excite¬ 
ment ; and if we are to believe the immortal bard, five moons came 
mooning out upon the occasion, which may account for the moonstruck 
condition of the populace. 

The Britons, amongst whom Arthur had been educated, were furious 
at the murder of their youthful prince, whose eldest sister, Eleanor, was 
in the hands of her uncle John. This lady was called by some, the 
Pearl of Brittany; but if she was really a gem, she must have been an 
antique, for she spent forty years of her life in captivity. The Britons, 
therefore, rallied round a younger heroine, her half-sister, Alice, and 
appointed her father, Guy de Thouars, the regent and general of their 
confederacy. De Thouars was a Guy only in name, for he was 
extremely handsome, and had attracted the attention of the lady 
Constance, whose third and last husband he had become. Guy went 
as the head of a deputation to the French king, who summoned John to 
a trial; but that individual instead of attending the summons, allowed 
judgment to go by default, and was sentenced to a forfeiture of his 
dominions. 

John for some time treated the steps taken against him with 
contempt, and remained at Rouen, until he thought it advisable to go over 
to England, to prepare for his defence by collecting money, for it was 
always by sucking dry the public purse, that tyrants in those days wer* 
accustomed to look for succour. 

It was by his efforts to extract cash from his people that he excited 
among his nobles the discontent which has rendered the discontented 
barons of his reign, par excellence , the discontented barons of English 
history. He continued to mulct them every day, and his reign was 
a long game of forfeits, in which the barons were always the sufferers. 
Still they refused to quit the country for the defence of their tyrant's 
foreign possessions 


106 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


By dint of threats and bribery he at last contrived (a.d. 1206) to land 
an army at Rochelle, and a contest was about to commence, when John 
proposed a parley. Without waiting for the answer, he ran away, 
leaving a notice on the door of his tent, stating that he had gone to 
England, and would return immediately, which, in accordance with the 
modem “ chamber-practice,” was equivalent to an announcement that he 
had no intention of coming back again. 

John, who could agree with nobody, now began to quarrel with the 
pope by starting a candidate for the see of Canterbury, in opposition to 
Stephen Langton, the nominee of old Innocent. His holiness desired 
three English bishops to go and remonstrate with the king, who flew 
into a violent passion, and used the coarsest language, winding up with 



King John threatening to cut off the Noses of the Bishops 


a threat to■ “ cut off their noses,” which caused the venerable deputation 
to “ cut off” themselves with prompt alacrity. The bishops, however, soon 
recovered from the effects of their ill-treatment, and determined by 
the aid of the people to punish with papal bulls the royal bully. 
















































































































































CHAP. VII.] PROCEEDINGS OF THE BISHOPS.-THE POPE. 107 

On Monday, the 23rd of March, 1208, they pronounced an interdict 
against all John’s dominions; but, like children setting lire to a train of 
gunpowder and running away, the Bishops quitted the kingdom, as if 
afraid of the result of their own boldness. This was soon followed by a 
bull of excommunication against John, but the wary tyrant, by watching 
the ports, prevented the entrance of this bull, which would have made 
it a mere toss up whether he could keep possession of his throne. 

John employed the year 1210 in raising money, by stealing it 
wherever he could lay his hands upon it; for, says the chronicler, “ as 
long as there was a sum he could bone, he thought it the summurn 
bonurn to get hold of it.” With the cash he had collected he repaired 
to Ireland, and at Dublin was joined by twenty robust chieftains, who 
might have been called the Dublin-stout of the thirteenth century. 
Returning to England in three months with an empty pocket, he 
became alarmed at hearing of a conspiracy among his barons. He shut 
himself up for fifteen days in the castle of Nottingham, seeing no one 
but the servants, and not permitting the door to be opened even to take 
in the milk, lest the cream of the British nobility should flow in with it. 

At length, in the year 1213, Innocent hurled his last thunderbolt at 
John’s head, with the intention of knocking off his crown. The pope 
pronounced the deposition of the English king, and declared the throne 
open to competition, with a hint to Philip of France that he might find 
it an eligible investment. He prepared a fleet of 1700 vessels at Bou¬ 
logne, but some of the vessels must have been little bigger than butter¬ 
boats if 1700 of them were crammed into this insignificant harbour. 
John, by a desperate effort, got together 60,000 men, but they were by 
no means staunch, and he was as much afraid of his own. troops as of 
those belonging to the enemy. Pandulph, the pope’s legate, knowing 
his character, came to Dover, and frightened him by fearful pictures of 
the enemy’s strength, while Peter the Hermit,* who was rather more 
plague than prophet, bored the tyrant with predictions of his death. 
John, who w 7 as exceedingly superstitious, was so worked upon by his 
fears that he agreed to Pandulph’s terms, and on the 15tli of May, 1213, 
he signed a sort of cognovit, acknowledging himself the vassal of the pope, 
and agreeing to pay a thousand marks a year, in token of which he set 
his own mark at the end of the document. 

He next offered Pandulph something for his trouble, but the legate 
raising his leg, trampled the money under his foot, The next day was 
that on which Peter the Hermit had prophesied that John would die, 
and the tyrant remained from morning till night watching the clock 
with intense anxiety. Finding himself alive at bed-time, he grew 
furious against Peter for having caused him so much needless alarm, 
and the Hermit was hanged for the want of foresight he had exhibited. 
He died, exclaiming that the king should have been grateful that the 
prediction had not been fulfilled; “ but,” added he, as he placed his 

* Some writers have called Peter the Hermit a hare-brained recluse. As his head was 
closely shaved, the epithet “ hair-brained ” seems to have been sadly misapplied. 


108 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK II. 


head through the fatal noose, “ some folks are never satisfied.” The 
French king was exceedingly disgusted at the shabby treatment he had 
received ; but Philip expended his rage hi a few philippics against 
Pandulph, who merely expressed his regret, and added peremptorily, 
that England being now under the dominion of the pope, must hence¬ 
forth be let alone. Philip alluded to the money he was out of pocket, 
but the nuncio politely observing that he was not happy at questions of 
account, withdrew while repeating his prohibition. 

John, who had so lately eaten humble pie, soon began to regard his 
promises as the pie-crust, which he commenced breaking very rapidly 
Wishing, however, to carry the war into France, he required the services 
of his barons, who were very reluctant to aid him, and he had got as far 
as Jersey, when happening to look behind him, he perceived that he 
had scarcely any followers. He had started with a tolerable number, 
but they turned back sulkily by degrees, without his being aware of it 
until he arrived at Jersey, when he was preparing to turn himself round, 
and perceived that his suite had dwindled down to a few mercenaries, 
who hung on to his skirts merely for the sake of what he had got in his 
pockets. Becoming exceedingly angry, he wheeled suddenly back, and 
vented his spite in burning and ravaging everything that crossed his 
path. He was in a flaming passion, for he set fire to all the buildings 
on the road till he reached Northampton, where Langton overtook him, 
and taxed him with the violation of his oath. “ Mind your own busi¬ 
ness,” roared the king, “ and leave me to manage mine; ” but Langton 
would not take an answer of that kind, and stuck to him all the way to 
Nottingham, where the prelate, according to Ins own quaint phraseology, 
“ went at him again ” with more success than formerly. John issued 
summonses to the barons, and Langton hastened to see them in 
London, where he drew up a strong affidavit by which they all swore to 
be true to each other, and to their liberties. 

John was still apprehensive of the hostility of the pope, which 
might have been fatal at this juncture, had not Cardinal Nicholas 
arrived in the nick of time, namely, on the 12tli of September, 1213, 
to take off the interdict. The Court of Pcome thus executed a sort of 
chcissez-croisez, by going over to the side of John, but Langton did not 
desert his old partner, liberty. In the following year the English king 
was defeated at the battle of Bouvines, one of the most tremendous 
affrays recorded in history. Salisbury, surnamed Longsword, was 
captured by that early specimen of the church militant, the Bishop of 
Beauvais, who, because it was contrary to the canons of the Church for 
him to shed blood, fought with a ponderous club, by which he knocked 
the enemy on the head, and acquired the name of the stunning Bishop. 
He banged about him in such style, that he might have been eligible 
for the see of Bangor, had his ambition pointed in that direction. John 
obtained a truce ; but the discontented barons had already placed a rod 
in pickle for him, and on the 20th day of November, they held a 
crowded meeting at St. Edmund's Bury, which was adjourned until 


CHAP. VII.] 


RECEPTION OF THE BARONS. 


109 


Christmas. At that festive season, John found himself eating his 
roast-beef entirely alone, for nobody called to wish him joy, or partake 
his pudding. 

After dining by himself at Worcester, he started for London, making 
sure of a little gaiety at boxing-time, in the great metropolis. Nobody, 



'J'lie Bishop of Beauvais capturing Salisbury. 


however, took the slightest notice of him until one day the whole of the 
barons came to him in a body, to pay him a morning visit. Surprised at 
the largeness of the party, he was somewhat cool, but on hearing that 
they had come for liberty, he declared that he would not allow any 
liberty to be taken while he continued king of England. The party 
remained firm with one or two exceptions, when John began to shiver 
as if attacked with ague, and he went on blowing hot and cold as long 
as he could, until pressed by the barons for an answer to their petition. 
He then replied evasively, “ Why—yes—no ; let me see—ha!—exactly 
—stop ! Well, I don’t know, perhaps so—’pon honour; ” and ultimately 
obtained time until Easter, to consider of the proposals that were made 
to him. The confederated barons had no sooner got outside the street- 
door than John began to think over the means of circumventing them. 
As they separated on the threshold, to go to their respective homes, it 











































110 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK II. 

was evident from the gestures and' countenances of the group that there 
had been a difference of opinion as to the policy of granting John the 
time he had requested. A bishop and two barons, who had turned 
recreants at the interview, and receded from their claims, were of course 
severely bullied by the rest of the confederates, on quitting the royal 
presence. At length the day arrived, in Easter week,when the barons were 
to go for an answer to the -little Bill—of Rights—which they had left 
with John at the preceding Christmas. They met at Stamford, where 
they got up a grand military spectacle, including two thousand knights 
and an enormous troop of auxiliaries. The king, who was at Oxford, 
sent off Cardinal Langton, with the Earls of Pembroke and Warrenne, 
as a deputation, who soon returned with a schedule of terrific length, con¬ 
taining a catalogue of grievances, which the Barons declared they would 
have remedied. John flew into one of his usual passions, tearing his 
long hair, and rapidly pacing his chamber with the skirt of his robe 
thrown over his left arm, while, with his right hand, he shook his fist at 
vacancy. The deputation could merely observe calmly, “We have done 

our part of the 
business: that is 
what the barons 
want; ” and a roll 
of parchment was 
instantly allowed 
to run out to its 
full length at the 
foot of the enraged 
sovereign. John 
took up the docu¬ 
ment and pretend¬ 
ed to inspect it 
with much minute 
ness, muttering to 
himself, “ No, 1 
don’t see it down,” 
upon which Lang¬ 
ton asked the sove¬ 
reign what he was 
looking for. “ I was searching,” sarcastically roared the tyrant, “ for 
the crown, which I fully expected to find scheduled as one of the items 
I am called upon to surrender.” This led to some desultory conver¬ 
sation, in the course of which the lung made some evasive offers, which 
the barons would not accept, and the latter, appointing Robert Fitz- 
Walter as their general, at once commenced hostilities. 

They first marched upon the castle of Northampton, but w r hen they 
got under the walls they discovered that they had got no battering-rams, 
and after sitting looking at the castle for fifteen days, they marched off 
again. At Bedford where they w r ent next, the same farce might have 



John in a Passion. 






























































































































































































CHAP. VI[.] GRANTING OF MAGNA CHARTA. 1JJ 

been enacted, had not the inhabitants opened the gates for them Here 
they received an invitation from London, and stopping to rest for the 
night at Ware—on account, perhaps, of the accommodation afforded by 
the Great Bed—they arrived on Sunday, the 24th of May, 1215, in 
the City. Here they were joined by the whole nobility of England, 
while John was abandoned by all but seven knights, who remained near 
his person, the seven (k)nights forming a weak protection to the 
sovereign. His heart at first failed him, but he w 7 as a capital actor, 
and soon assumed a sort of easy cheerfulness. He presented his com¬ 
pliments to the barons, and assured them he should be most happy to 
meet them, if they would appoint a time and place for an interview. 
The barons instantly fixed the 19th of June at Runny-Mead, when John 
intimated that he should have much pleasure in accepting the polite 
invitation. 

At length the eventful morning arrived, when John cantered quietly 
down from Windsor Castle, attended by eight bishops and a party of 
about twenty gentlemen. These, however, were not his friends, but 
had been lent by the other side, “ for the look of the thing,” lest the 
king should seem to be wholly without attendants. The barons, who 
had been stopping at Staines, were of course punctual, and had got the 
pen and ink all laid out upon a table, with a Windsor chair brought 
expressly from the town of Windsor for John to sit down upon. It had 
been expected that he would have raised some futile objections to sign; 
but the crafty sovereign, knowing it was a sine qua non made but one 
plunge into the inkstand, and affixed his autograph. It is said that he 
dropped a dip of ink accidentally on the parchment, and that he men¬ 
tally ejaculated “Ha! this affair will be a blot upon my name for ever.” 
The facility with which the king attached his signature to Magna Charta 
—the great Charter of England’s liberties—naturally excited suspicion ; 
for it is a remark founded on a long acquaintance with human nature, 
that the man who never means to take up a bill is always foremost in 
accepting one. Had John contemplated adhering to the provisions of 
the document he would have probably discussed the various clauses, but 
a swindler seldom disputes the items of an account, when he has not the 
remotest intention of paying it. 

Though Magna Charta has been practically superseded by subsequent 
statutes, it must always be venerated as one of the great foundations of 
our liberties. It established the “beautiful principle” that taxation 
shall only take place by the consent of those taxed—a principle the 
beauty of which has been its chief advantage, for it has proved less an 
article for use than for ornament. The agreeable figure that every one 
who pays a tax does so with his own full concurrence, and simply because 
he likes it, is a pleasing delusion, which all have not the happiness 
to labour under. It was also provided that “the king should sell, delay, 
or deny justice to none,” a condition that can scarcely be considered 
fulfilled when we look at some of the bills of costs that generally follow 
a long suit in that game of chance which has obtained the singularly 


112 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK II. 


appropriate title of Chancery. It may be perhaps argued, that the 
article delayed and sold is law, whereas Magna Charta alludes only 
to justice. This, we must admit, establishes a distinction —not without 
a difference. 

Though John had kept his temper tolerably well at the meeting 
with the barons, he had no sooner got back to Windsor Castle, than he 
called a few foreign adventurers round him, and indulged in a good 
hearty swearing fit against the charter. He grew so frantic, according 
to the chroniclers, that he “ gnashed his teeth, rolled his eyes, and 
gnawed sticks and straws,” though he could scarcely have done all this 
without sending for the umbrella-stand, and having a good bite at its 
contents, or ordering in a few wisps from the stable. That John was 
exceedingly mad with the barons for what they had made him do, is 
perfectly true, but we do not go the length of those who look upon a 
truss of straw as essential to a person labouring under mental aberration. 

John now went to reside in the Isle of Wight, and tried to captivate the 
fishermen by adopting their manners. There is nothing veiy captiva¬ 
ting in the manners of the fishermen of the Isle of Wight at the present 
day, whatever may have been the case formerly ; but it is probable that 
the king became popular by a sort of kail-fellow-well-met-ishness, to 
which his dreadful habit of swearing no doubt greatly contributed. 
Having imported a lot of mercenaries from the Continent, he posted off 
to Dover to land the disgraceful cargo, and with them he marched 
against Rochester Castle, which had been seized by William D’Albiney. 
The larder was wretchedly low when D’Albiney first took possession, 
and the garrison was soon reduced to its last mouthful of provisions. 
This consisted of a piece of rind of cheese, which every body had 
refused in daintier days, when provisions were plentiful D’Albiney 
bolted the morsel and unbolted the gate nearly at the same momelit, 
when John, rushing in, butchered all the supernumeraries and sent the 
principal characters to Corfe Castle. 

John, who always grew bold -when there was no opposition, com¬ 
mitted all sorts of atrocities upon places without defence, and the barons 
shut up in Lincoln, held numerous meetings, which terminated in a 
resolution to offer the crown to Louis, the son of Philip of France, pro¬ 
vided the young gentleman and his papa would come over and fight for 
it. Louis left Calais with 680 vessels, but he had a terribly bad pas¬ 
sage across to Sandwich, where the “flats”as usual, permitted the landing 
of an enemy. John, who had run round to Dover with a numerous 
army, fled before the French landed, and committed arson on an exten¬ 
sive scale all over the country. Every night was a “ night wi’ Burns,” 
and the royal incendiary seems to have put himself under the especial 
protection of Blaise, as the only Saint with whom the tyrant felt the 
smallest sympathy. John ultimately put up at Bristol, and the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Bath seems to have quenched for a time his flaming impe- 
tuositv. 

V 

Louis having besieged Rochester Castle, which seems in those days 


CHAP. VII.] 


DEATH OF JOHN. 


113 


to have been very like a copy of the Times newspaper, which some one 
was always anxious to take directly it was out of hand, marched on to 
London. He arrived there on the 2nd of June, 1216, where he was 
received with that enthusiasm which the hospitable cockneys have ever 
been ready to bestow on foreigners of distinction. Nearly all the few 
followers that had hitherto adhered to John now abandoned him, and 
he was left almost alone with Gualo, the Pope’s legate, who did all he 
could to revive the drooping spirits of the tyrant. Vainly however did 
Gualo slap the sovereign on the back, inviting him to “cheer up,” and 
ply him with cider, his favourite beverage. “ Come ! drown it in the 
bowl,” was the constant cry of Gualo. “Talk not of bowls,” was the 
reply of John; “ what is life but a game at bowls, in which the king is 
too frequently knocked over ? ” 

Louis, in the meantime, growing arrogant with success, commenced in¬ 
sulting the English and granting their property to his foreign followers. 
The barons began to think they had made a false step with refe¬ 
rence to their own country by allowing the French Prince to put his 
foot in it. This for a moment brightened the prospects of John, who 
started off and went blazing away as far as Lynn, where he had got a 
depot of provisions, and of course el change of linen. Hence he made 
for Wisbeach, and put up at a place called the “ Cross Keys,” intend¬ 
ing to cross the Wash, which is a very passable place at low water. 

John was nearly across when he heard the tide beginning to roar 
with fearful fury. Knowing that tide and time wait for no man, he felt 
he was tied to time, and hurried to the opposite shore with tremendous 
rapidity. He succeeded in reaching land; but his horses, with his 
plate, linen, and money were not so fortunate, for he had the mortification 
of seeing all his clothes lost in the Wash, and the utter sinking of the 
whole of his capital. 

Venting his sorrow in cursory remarks and discursive curses, he went 
on to Swineshead Abbey, where he passed the night in eating peaches 
and pears, and drinking new cider. * The cider of course added to the 
fermentation that was going on in his fevered frame; and even without 
the peaches and pears, the efforts of his physicians might have proved 
fruitless. He went to bed, but could not sleep, for his conscience con¬ 
tinued to impeach him in a series of frightful dreams, to which the 
peaches no doubt contributed. He nevertheless made an effort to get 
up the next morning, and mounted his horse on the 15th of October; 
but he was too ill to keep his seat, and his attendants, putting him into 
a horse-box, got him as far as Sleaford. Here he passed another 
shocking night, but the next day they again moved him into the horse¬ 
box, and dragged him to Newark, where he requested that a Confessor 
might be sent for. The Abbot of Crocton, who was a doctor as well as 
a divine, immediately attended, and this leech was employed in drawing 
a confession from the lips of the tyrant. He named his eldest son, 
Henry, his successor, and dictated a begging-letter to the new Pope, ira- 

* Matthew Paris. 


114 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[book n 


ploring protection for his small and helpless children. He died on the 
18th of October, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the 
seventeenth of one of the most uncomfortable reigns recorded in 
English history. From first to last he seems to have been cut by his 
subjects, for we find him eating his Christmas dinner alone in the veiy 
middle of his sovereignty, and dragged about the country in a horse¬ 
box within a day of his death, when such active treatment could not 
have been beneficial to the royal patient in an advanced stage of fever. 

The character of John has been so fully developed in the account of 
his reign that it is quite unnecessary to sum him up on the present 
occasion. If he harassed the barons, they certainly succeeded in 
returning the compliment; for he seems to have had a most unpleasant 
time of it. He had the title of king, but was often worse off in point 
of accommodation than the humblest gentleman. His case reminds us 
of an individual, who, finding himself in a sedan with neither top nor 
bottom to it, came to the conclusion that he might as well have walked 
but for “ the look of the thing.” So it may be said of John, that 
deprived of all the substantial advantages of a throne, he might but 
“ for the name of the thing ” have just as well been a private in 
dividual. 























































































BOOK III. 


THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF IIENRY THE THIRD, TO THE 
END OF THE REIGN OF RICHARD THE SECOND. A.D. 1216-1399. 


CHAPTER THE FIRST. 


HENRY THE THIRD, SURNAMED OF WINCHESTER. 

enry, the eldest son of John, was 
a child under ten years of age at 
the time of his father’s death, but 
his brother-in-law 7 , the Earl of 
Pembroke, brought him to Glou 
\ ✓ cester and got him crowned hy 
Gualo, who had always acted as a 
friend of the family. The coro¬ 
nation, which took place on the 
28th of October, 1216, was very 
indifferently got up, for the crown 
had not come from the Wash, 
where it had been lying in soak 
ever since John’s unfortunate 
expedition across the water from 
Wisbeacli. Gualo therefore took 
a ring from his finger, and put it 
on the young king’s head, as a 
substitute for the missing diadem. The coronation party consisted of 
three earls, three bishops, and four barons, with a sprinkling of abbots 
and priors, comprising altogether a retinue of about thirty individuals. 

The clergy of Westminster and Canterbury complained bitterly of the 
ceremony having been “ scamped,” by which their rights had been 
invaded, or, in other words, by which they had been done out of their 
perquisites. The first coronation was therefore treated as a mere 
rehearsal, and a more regular performance afterwards took place, with 
new machinery, dresses, decorations, and all the usual properties. 

On the 11th of the following November, Pembroke w r as appointed 
rector Regis et Regni —ruler of the king and kingdom—so that Henry 
the Third was sovereign cle jure with a de facto viceroy over him. This 
arrangement was made at a great council held at Bristol, where Magna 

i 2 






















































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


lie 


[BOOK III. 


Charta was revised with a view to the publication of a new and improved 
edition. 

Louis, on hearing of John’s death, puffed himself up with a certainty 
of success, but he only realised the old fable of the French frog and 
the British bull; for, becoming inflated with pride, he was not long 
in bursting like an empty bubble. 

As Christmas, 1216, was close at hand, a truce was arranged, to 
enable each party to enjoy the holidays. Louis took advantage of the 
vacation to go to Paris to consult his father Philip, who, like a modern 
French king of the same name, was remarkable for his tact in doing the best 
for his own family. On his return to England, Louis encountered some 
hostility from the hardy mariners of the Cinque Ports—the Deal and 
Dover boatmen of that day—but reaching Sandwich, he got over the 
flats with the usual facility. He however spitefully burned the town to 
the ground, merely because it was one of the Cinque Ports, which had 
burned crusty at his approach, though it was hardly fair of him to mull 
the only port that did not prove too strong for him. Hostilities were 
continued on both sides with varying success, until the Count de la Perclie, 
a French general, flushed with a recent triumph at Mount Sorel, in 
Leicester, determined to attack the Castle of Lincoln. He would 
probably have succeeded, but for the resistance of a woman, the widow 
of the late keeper of the castle, who, with the obstinacy of her sex, 
refused to surrender. The Count de la Perclie, ashamed of being beaten 
by one of the gentler sex, continued the attack, and refusing to quit the 
town, found himself involved in a series of street rows of the most 
alarming character. 

Pembroke having collected a large force, sent part of it into the 
castle by the back garden-gate, and the other part into the town, so 
that poor de la Perche found it impossible to move either one way or the 
other. The English literally gave it him right and left, till he died; 
and after falling upon the almost defenceless French, they gave the 
name of “the fair of Lincoln,” to a battle about as unfair as any 
recorded in the pages of history. 

This event, which came off on the 20th of May, 1217, was followed 
in June by a conference which, like Panton Square, led to nothing. 
Louis made one more attempt upon Dover, but he had no means to 
carry on the war, and he was obliged to raise the siege, as he could not 
raise the money. He hastened to London, which he had no sooner 
entered than the English shut the gates and locked him in; while the 
Pope sent a tremendous bull down upon him, to add to his annoyances. 
Louis began to feel that he had had quite enough of it, and being 
anxious for a little peace, he proposed one to Pembroke. The terms 
were soon agreed upon, but Louis was detained in town some little time 
/or want of the money to pay his debts and his journey home again. 
The citizens of London forming themselves into a loan society, advanced 
a few pounds to the French prince, who deserves some credit for not 
having taken French leave of his creditors. By the terms of the treaty 


CHAP. I.] 


HENRY III.-HUBERT DK BURGH. 


117 


lie surrendered all his claims upon the English crown, which seems to 
have been rather a superfluous sacrifice, as he had been trying it on foi 
some time, and found that the cap never fitted. 

As Louis went out of London at the East end, to embark for France, 
Henry, who had been at Kingston, came in at Hyde Park Corner. 
Pembroke, the regent, made him exceedingly popular by advising him 
to confirm Magna Charta, and to add a clause or two for the purpose of 
freshening it up, so that the new edition might repay perusal. Unfortu¬ 
nately for the prospects of the kingdom, Pembroke died, in May, 1219, 
and was buried in the Temple Church, where his tomb is still to be seen 
by anyone who can obtain a bencher’s order. The regent’s authority 
was now divided between Hubert de Burgh and Peter—or, as Pcapin 
christens him—William Des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester. These 
two individuals, though jealous of each other, agreed in the propriety of 
another coronation, probably on account of the patronage it gave to those 
who happened to be in power; and as the couple in question had just 
taken office, they were anxious to realise some of the profits at the 
earliest opportunity. In the quarrels between these two worthies, 
Des Roches was getting rather the upper hand, when Hubert de Burgh, 
in 1223, got the Pope to declare that the king, who was only sixteen 
years of age, had attained his majority. Thus, like the dog in the man¬ 
ger, Hubert determined that no one else should enjoy a position which 
he himself was unable to profit by. This was an “ artful dodge ” of the 
cunning Hubert, to get the game into his own hands, for Henry on being 
pronounced “ of age,” having received a surrender of various castles and 
fortified places from the barons, gave back those winch he had no occa¬ 
sion for to the wily minister. The barons, finding themselves bam¬ 
boozled, became exceedingly angry with the king and Hubert, but the 
latter went on, alternately hanging and excommunicating, until he had 
settled the obstreperous and quelled the turbulent. 

The year 1225 must ever be remarkable for the refusal of Parliament 
—a name that was then coming into use—to grant supplies without 
asking any questions. This had formerly been the usual practice, but 
when Hubert coolly proposed a grant of a fifteenth of all the movable 
property in the kingdom for the use of the king, the Parliament said it 
was all veiy well, but if the money was given there ought to be some¬ 
thing to show for it. Henry accordingly gave another ratification of 
Magna Charta, which was a good deal like the old superfluous process 
of putting butter upon bacon, for he had already twice ratified that im¬ 
portant document. In those days, however, there was no objection to 
giving the lily an extra coat of paint, or treating the refined gold to an 
additional layer of gilding. 

In the year 1228, Henry had collected an army at Portsmouth to sail 
for France, but Hubert de Burgh, who seems to have held the place of 
First Lord of the Admiralty as well as his other offices, had not provided 
a sufficient number of vessels. When the troops were about to embark 
it was found impossible to stow them away even with the closest packing. 


118 


COMTC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


Henry flew into a violent passion with Hubert, accusing him of pocket¬ 
ing the money he ought to have laid out in ships, and the king had 
drawn his sword, intending to run the minister through, when the Earl 
of Chester ran between them, exclaiming “ Hold ! with intense signi- 



'! he Earl of Chester interposing between Henry III. and Hubert de Burgh. 


ficance. This fine dramatic situation told exceedingly well; for Hubert 
de Burgh got off, though the king did not, and the expedition was post¬ 
poned until the year following. He passed over into Normandy, a.d. 
1229, but he preferred feasting to fighting, and the only advance he 
made was by continually running away, which kept him constantly 
ahead of the enemy. He, however, threw all the blame of the failure 
on Hubert, whose shoulders must have been tolerably broad to have 
borne all that his master chose to cast on to them. 

The king returned to England very much out of pocket and com¬ 
pletely out of spirits. He applied to his old paymaster, the Parliament, 
but his conduct had excited so much disgust, that instead of money, or 
as it was then called, blunt, he got a blunt refusal. His Majesty, whose 
tone had hitherto been that of command, now assumed the humble air 
of the mendicant, and he adopted the degrading clap-trap of his being 
“ a real case of distress,” in order to obtain a subsidy. He declared his 
inability to pay his way, but as his way was never to pay at all, this 
argument availed him very little. He was, however, getting rapidly 
shorter and shorter ever} 7 day, when fearing that he would perhaps com- 






































































CHAP. I.] 


DISGRACE AND FALL OF DE BURGH. 


119 


promise the dignity of the crown by pawning it, or sell the regalia for- 
the purpose of regaling himself, the Parliament agreed to let him have 
a trifle for current expenses. This consisted of three marks for every 
fief held immediately of the Crown,* which was little enough to give him 
an excuse for not paying his debts, and yet sufficient to allow him to 
rush into fresh extravagancies. In the year 1232, Henry, having of 
course spent every shilling of this small supply, renewed his application 
to Parliament, alleging that he was desirous of discharging the liabilities 
incurred in his expedition to France, but the barons firmly, and not 
very respectfully, refused any further pecuniary assistance. They 
urged in effect, that they had already been doubly robbed of their ser¬ 
vices and their cash, for they had never been paid for the one, and had 
been almost drained of the other. The nobles, who had derived nearly 
all they possessed from plunder, could not see the justice of the prin¬ 
ciple, that as they had done to others they deserved to be done, and they 
peremptorily refused to comply with the attempted exactions of the 
sovereign. 

Having failed in his attack on the pockets of his Parliament, Henry 
looked with an envious eye on the comfortably lined coffers of his minis¬ 
ter. Hubert de Burgh, though he enjoyed the reputation of a trusty 
servant, had taken care to feather his nest, nor did the feathers lie very 
heavily on his conscience, for in those days the greatest weight that 
could be placed upon the mind was always portable. The tonnage of 
Plubert’s conscience appears to have been considerable, for though he 
carried a good cargo of peculation he seems never to have evinced any 
disposition to sink under his burden. Henry became jealous of the 
good fortune of his minister, and resolved, for the purpose of getting his 
savings, to effect his ruin. Presuming Hubert to have been a dishonest 
man, and granting that there is policy in the recommendation to “ set a 
thief to catch a thief,” the king could not have done better than to send 
for Des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, to assist in cleaning out the 
favourite. Poor de Burgh was in the first instance charged with magic and 
enchantment; which may be considered equivalent to an impeachment 
of the minister of the present day for phantasmagoria and thimble-rig. 

In these enlightened times we cannot conceive the Premier being 
sent to the Tower on a suspicion of jack-a-lantern and blind hookey, 
though it was for offences of this class that Hubert was at first arraigned 
on the prosecution of his sovereign. These frivolous charges having 
fallen to the ground, the king called upon him for an account of all the 
money that had passed through his hands; when the minister having 
kept no books and being wholly without vouchers, cut a very pretty 
figure. As he had been in the habit of cutting figures all through his 
career, this result was not to be wondered at. He, however, rummaged 
among his papers and found an old patent, given him by John, absolving 
him from the necessity of rendering any account, but his enemies replied, 
that this was only a receipt in full up to the time of Henry's accession 


* Rapin’s IJistoue cTAngleterre, tom. ii. page 386 of the second edition. 


120 


COMIC HISloR* OF ENGLAND. 


r Boor 


Hubert finding lie could not get out of the scrape, determined, if possible, 
to get out of the country; but he proceeded no further on the road than 
Merton, where he turned in to the Priory. The king at first determined 
to have him out, dead or alive, and a mob of upwards of twenty thousand 
people, says Rap in,* were about to start with the Mayor of London to 
take the ex-minister into custody. How such a crowd was got together 
in those days out of the mere superfluous idlers of the city, is not known, 
and we are equally in the dark how it happened that this mob conti¬ 
nued doing nothing, while the king listened to remonstrances from 
various quarters against the violence of his measures. 

London mobs must have been rather more tractable in the thirteenth 
than in the nineteenth century, for the twenty thousand people dis¬ 
persed when it was understood, after considerable negotiation, that their 
services would not be required. Indeed, according to a more recent 
historian,! they had actually started when a kings messenger was 
despatched to call them back again. 

Hubert, who had found the prioiy at Merton exceedingly slow, 
started off to St. Edmond’s Bury to see his wife, who resided there. 
He had got as far as Brentwood, and had gone to bed, when he was 
roused by a loud knocking at the door, which caused him to put his 
head out of the window, and inquire, who or what was wanted. “ Is 
there a person of the name of Hubert de Burgh stopping here ? ” 
exclaimed the captain of the troop; but the wily minister, for the sake 
of gaining time, pretended to misunderstand the question. “ Hubert 
de What ? ” he exclaimed, as he slipped on a portion of his dress; but 
the soldier repeated the name with a tremendous emphasis on the 
syllable Burgh, which caused a shudder in the frame of Hubert. He, 
however, had the presence of mind to direct them to the second door 
round the comer. Having got them away from the front of the cottage 
by this manoeuvre, he ran down stairs into the street, and made his 
way to the chapel. Here he was seized by his pursuers, who placed 
him on a horse, and tied his feet together under the animal’s stomach. 
Hubert must have had legs of a most extraordinary length, or the 
horse must have been a very genteel figure to have permitted this 
arrangement, which we find recorded in all the histories. 

It is possible that the brute upon which De Burgh was secured may 
have been a donkey, in which case the legs of the ex-favourite might 
have been long enough to admit of their being tied in a double knot 
—and perhaps even in a bow—under the animal's stomach. In this 
uncomfortable position he was trotted off to the Tower; but the clergy 
being incensed at the violation of sanctuary, Hubert was re-mounted in 
flie same style, and trotted back again. He was placed in the church 
as before, but all communication with it was cut off, a trench dug round 
it, and Hubert was left without any food but that which is always so 
plentiful under similar circumstances—namely, food for reflection. 

* Tom ii. page 391. 

*t Mac far! an c s Cabinet History of England, vol iii. page 229. 


CHAP. I.] 


ASSASSINATION OF PEMBROKE. 


121 


After “ chewing the hitter cud ” until there was nothing left to 
masticate, he intimated from the steeple his desire to surrender. He 
had remained forty days shut up without food, fire, or any other clothing 
hut the wrapper in which he had made his escape from his lodgings at 
Brentwood. The once burly De Burgh had, of course, become dread¬ 
fully thin, and the thread of existence seemed to be inclosed in a mere 
thread-paper. In this state he was taken to the Tower; hut he was 
soon released to take his trial before his peers, who would have con¬ 
demned him to death, but the king, looking on the minister as a golden 
goose, merely seized the accumulated eggs, and sent him to prison at 
the Castle of Devizes, until some other means were devised of getting 
hold of the remainder of his property. 

Hubert had scarcely been in prison a year, when he took advantage 
of a dark night to drop himself over one of the battlements. He 
however found that one good drop deserved another, for he had fallen 
into a ditch containing a good drop of water, in which he remained 
absorbed for several seconds. Having crawled out, he commenced 
wringing his hands and his clothes, but feeling there was no time to be 
lost, he made his way to a country church, whither he was traced by 
the drippings from his garments, which had left a mark something like 
that of a water-cart, along the path he had taken. Though captured by 
one party, he was set at liberty by another, with whom the king had 
become very unpopular, and Hubert was carried off to Wales, where a 
sect of discontents who, had they lived in these days, would have been 
called the Welsh W T higs, had long been gathering. Hubert in about a 
year and a half, obtained a return of part of his estates, and was even 
restored to his honours ; but the king still kept him as a sort of nest- 
egg to plunder as occasion required. Hubert finally compromised the 
claims of the sovereign by surrendering four castles, in which Hollinshed 
is disposed to believe that Jack Straw’s and the Elephant could not 
have been included. 

The Bishop of Winchester, or as he is termed in history, the 
Poictevin bishop, succeeded to power on the downfal of Hubert, and 
Des Roches soon filled the Court with foreign adventurers. Two of a 
trade never agree ; and the nobility who had originally been foreign 
adventurers themselves, objected to the importation of any more scamps 
from abroad, on the principle, perhaps, that England had got plenty of 
that sort already. The Poictevin bishop was particularly hostile to the 
son of the late regent, the young earl of Pembroke, who inherited some 
of his father’s virtues, and what was far more interesting to old Des 
Roches, the whole of his father’s property. Young P. was in Ireland, 
where he had large estates, which the Poictevin bishop desired the 
governors of that country to confiscate. He promised them a slice, and 
the governors being—as Rapin has it —avides d un si bon morceau — 
(ravenous for such a tit-bit) determined on getting hold of it. Treachery was 
accordingly resorted to, and Pembroke was basely stabbed in the back 
while sitting unsuspectingly at his own Pembroke table. This was 


1*22 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK JII 


more than the barons could bear; and they told Henry very plainly, 
through Edmund, the new archbishop of Canterbury, that if Des Roches 
was not dismissed, the sovereign himself would be sent forthwith about 
his business. The Poictevin was ordered off to Winchester, with 
directions to limit his views to his own see; and the patriotic 
Canterbury, who had of course only been anxious for the good of his 
country, obtained the power from which his predecessor had been 
cleverly ousted. 

The Bishop of Winchester was soon afterwards called to Rome by the 
Pope, who pretended to require his advice, but really had an eye to his 
money. Des Roches imagined that he was invited for protection, but he 
was in fact wanted for pillage. The Poictevin was glad to escape from 
English surveillance, and was quite content to eat his mutton under the 
pope’s eye, though he was hardly prepared for the process of picking to 
which he was subjected. The predecessor of Urban* was, however, all 
urbanity, and thus made some amends to Des Roches, who, like the 
majority of mankind, found victimisation a comparatively painless 
operation when performed by the gentle or light-fingered hands of an 
accomplished swindler. 

In the year 1236, Henry married Eleanor of Provence, with immense 
pomp and another coronation—a ceremony the frequent repetition of 
which in former times was a proof of the uncertainty of regal power, for 
the crown could not be very firm that so often required re-soldering. 
The king’s marriage formed, perhaps, a reasonable excuse for placing an 
extra hod of cement between the monarch’s poll and the hollow diadem. 
The marriage festivities were followed by the summoning of a Parlia¬ 
ment at Merton, where Henry passed a series of statutes that became 
famous under the name of the Statutes of Merton; and where he also 
pocketed, in the shape of subsidies, a considerable sum of money. 

Eleanor, the new queen, brought with her to England a quantity of 
needy and seedy foreigners, most of whom were immediately promoted. 
One of her uncles, “named Boniface,” says Mathew Paris, “from 
his extraordinary quantity of cheek,” was raised to the see of Canterbury. 
She invited over from Provence a quantity of demoiselles d marier , 
whom she got off by palming them upon rich young nobles, of whom her 
husband held the wardship. The court was turned into a land of matri 
monial bazaar, where the wealthy scions of English aristocracy were 
hooked by the portionless but sometimes pretty spinsters of Provence. 
Nor was this all, for Isabella, the queen mother, sent over her four boys, 
Guy, William, Geoffrey, and Aymer, her sons, by the Count de la 
Marche, to be provided for. England was in fact regarded as an enor¬ 
mous common, upon which any foreign goose or jackass might be turned 
out to grass, provided he was patronised by a member of the reigning 
family. Henry, who was the victim of his poor relations, soon found 
himself short of cash, and he was obliged to get money in driblets, from 

* According to some authorities Celestine was pope at this period, and Urban did not 
reach the papal dignity till some time afterwards. 


CHAP. I.] SUMPTUARY PROCEEDINGS WITH THE BARONS. 1^3 

tho Parliament, wlio never allowed him much at a time, and always 
exacted conditions which were invariably broken as soon as the cash was 
granted. 



Marriage of his most Gracious Majesty Henry III. and Eleanor of Provence. 


Henry had been married about a year, when he had the coolness to ask 
the nation for the expenses of his wedding. The Barons declared that 
they had never been consulted about the match, and that the king up 
to the last hour of his remaining a single man had acted with great 
duplicity. Finding it useless to command, he resorted to the old plan 
of humbug, and fell back upon his old friend Magna Charta, which he 
confirmed once more, for about the fifth or sixth time, and of course got 
the money he required. This great Bill of Rights was to him a sort of 
stereotyped bill of exchange, upon which he could always raise a sum 
of money by going through the formality of a fresh acceptance. 

The history of this reign for the next few years would furnish fitter 
materials for the accountant than the historian, and Henry’s career 
would be better told in a balance-sheet than in the form of narrative. 
Had his schedule been regularly filed it would have disclosed a series of 
insolvencies, from which he was only relieved by taking the benefit of 
some act of generosity and credulity on the part of his Parliament. At 
one moment he was so fearfully hard up that he was advised to sell all 



































































































































































124 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IIr. 


Iris plate and jewels.* “Who will buy them?” he exclaimed;— 
“ though,” he added, glancing at his four awkward half brothers, “ if any 
one would give me anything for that set of spoons, I should be glad to 
take the offer.” He was told that the citizens of London would pur¬ 
chase plate to any amount, at which he burst into violent invectives 
against “ the clowns,” as he termed them, probably on account of the 
presumed capacity of their breeches pockets. He made every effort to 
annoy the citizens, and showed his appreciation of their superfluous cash 
by helping himself to ten thousand pounds of it by open violence. 

In the year 1253, Henry was once more in a fix, and again the Par¬ 
liament had the folly to promise him a supply if he would go through 
another confirmation of Magna Charta. On the 3rd of May he attended 
a general meeting of the nobility at Westminster Hall, where he found 
the ecclesiastical dignitaries holding each a burning taper in his hand, 
intending probably that the melting wax should make a deep impression 
on the sovereign. Some are of opinion that this process was illustrative 
of the necessity sometimes said to exist for holding a candle to a certain 
individual. Henry took the usual quantity of oaths, and the priests 
dashed to the ground their tapers, which went out in smoke, and were 
so far typical of the king's promises. On receiving the money he went 
to Guienne, from which he soon came back—as a popular vocalist used 
to say by way of cue to his song—“ without sixpence m his pocket, just 
like—Love among the roses.” 

The Pope now brought in a heavy bill of £100,000 for money lent, 
of which Henry declared he had never enjoyed the benefit. The Pope 
merely observed, that he was clearing his books and must have the 
matter settled. The king turned upon the clergy, upon whom he drew 
bills, one of which was addressed to the Bishop of Worcester, who de¬ 
clared they might take his mitre in execution for the amount, and the 
Bishop of Gloucester said they might serve his the same ; but if they 
did he would wear a helmet. Bichard, the king's brother, who was very 
wealthy, hearing that the German empire was in the market for sale, 
made a bold bid for it. There was another competitor for the lot in the 
person of Alphonso, king of Castile, but Richard put down £700,000 and 
was declared the purchaser. This liberality was of course at the expense 
of poor England, which was so completely drained of cash that when 
Henry met his Parliament on the 2nd of May, 1258, he found the 
barons in full armour, rattling their swords, as much as to say, that 
these must furnish a substitute for the precious metals. 

Henry was alarmed at the menacing aspect of the assembly, but one 
of his foreign half-brothers began vapouring, in a mixed patois of bad 
French, to the bent down, but not yet broken, English. The king 
himself resorted to his old trick of promising, and pledged his word 
once more with his usual success, though it was already pawned over 
and over again for a hundred times its value. The barons, however, 
were still ready to take it in; though they had got by them already an 

* Mathew Palis. Mat. West. Chron. Duucl. 


CHAP. I.] SALE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 125 

enormous stock of similar articles, all unredeemed, and daily losing their 
interest. The leader of the country party was at this time Simon de 
Montfort, Earl of Leicester, a Frenchman, who had married Eleanor, 
the king’s sister. He had quarrelled and made it up with Henry once 
or twice, and the following conversation is recorded to have taken place, 
in 1252, between the earl and his sovereign :— 

“ You are a traitor,” said the king. 

“ You are a liar! ” replied the courtier. 

After this brief and decisive dialogue Leicester went to France, hut 
his royal brother-in-law soon invited him back again. 

On the 11th of June, 1258, there met, at Oxford, an assembly to 
which the royalists gave the name of the Mad Parliament. There was 
a good deal of method in the madness of the members, for they appointed 
twenty-four barons and bishops as a committee of government. There 
was some insanity in the proposition to hold three sessions in a year, 
but it is doubtful whether Dr. Winslow, or any other eminent physician 
would have found, in the statutes passed at the time, sufficient to form 
the foundation of a statute of lunacy. Henry seems to have been most 
in want of Dr. Winslow's care, for his majesty was exceedingly mad at 
the decisive measures of the barons, and would have been glad of an 
asylum where he would have been safe from their influence. 

The Oxford parliament, which was certainly an odd compound of 
good and bad, or light and dark—the regular Oxford mixture— 
passed some measures of a very miscellaneous character. The annual 
election of a new sheriff, and the sending to Parliament of four 
knights, chosen by the freeholders in each comity, were judicious 
steps; but in some other respects the barons abused their power, 
and got a good deal of abuse themselves in consequence. The queen’s 
relations and the king’s half-brothers were literally scared out of the 
kingdom but only to make way for the advancement of the friends 
and relatives of the Mad Parliament. 

Soon after it met, Richard, who had emptied his pockets in Germany, 
wanted to come to England to replenish them. He was met at St. 
Omer by a messenger, stating that there would be no admittance unless 
he complied with the new regulations made by the barons. To this he 
reluctantly consented, and he joined his brother the king, with the full 
intention of organising an opposition, which he found already com¬ 
menced by the Earl of Gloucester, who had grown jealous of Leicester's 
influence. Even at that early period the struggles between the “ Ins 
and the Outs,” which form the chief business of political life, had 
already commenced, and there was the same sort of shuffling from side 
to side, and principle to principle, which the observer of statesmanship 
at the present day cannot fail to recognise 

There was among all parties a vast protestation of regard for Magna 
Charta, which served the same purpose then as has since been answered 
by the British Constitution and the British lion. Henry, seeing with 
delight the divisions of the barons, got a bull from the pope to serve as 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


120 


[BOOK III. 


a piece of Indian-rubber for liis conscience, by rubbing out all the oaths 
he had taken at Oxford. 

On the 2nd of February, 1261, he announced his intention of gov¬ 
erning without the aid of the Committee, and immediately went to 
the Tower, of which he took possession. He then dropped in at the 
Mint, where he emptied every till, and even waited, according to some, 
while a shilling, which was in the course of manufacture, got cool in the 
crucible. The Mint authorities were of course exceedingly obsequious, 
and may probably have offered to send home a batch of new pennies that 
were not quite done, if his majesty desired it. “ No thank you,” would 
have been Henry’s reply, “I ’ll take what you’ve got; ” and so he did, 
for off he marched with the whole of it. 

The arbitrary conduct of the barons had somewhat disgusted the 
people, many of whom had discovered that one tyrant was not quite so 
bad as four-and-twenty. London declared for Henry, and Leicester ran 
away; but the vacillating cockneys soon declared for Leicester, which 
brought him back again. The king, who had been at such pains to 
secure the Tower, had the mortification to find it secured him, for he 
was safely locked up in it. Prince Edward, his son, flew to Windsor 
Castle, and the queen, his mother, was going down to the stairs at 
London Bridge to take a boat to follow him. She had shouted “Hi! ” 
to the Jack-in-the-water, and was stepping into a wherry, when she was 
recognised by the mob, who called after her as a witch, and pelted her 
with mud and missiles. The Lord Mayor, who happened to be passing, 
gallantly offered her his arm, walked with her to St. Paul’s, and left her 
in the care of the door-keeper. This anecdote is circumstantially given 
by all the chroniclers, among whom we need only mention Wykes 
West, and Trivet—the correctness of the last being so remarkable that 
“ right as a Trivet ” is to this day a proverb. After a prodigious quan¬ 
tity of quarrelling between Henry and Son on one part, and Leicester 
and Co. on the other, the matters in dispute were referred to the arbitra¬ 
tion of the French king, Louis the Ninth, who made an award in 
favour of Henry, which the barons of course refused to abide by. A 
civil war broke out with great fury, in which the Jews were victimised 
by both parties, though opposed to neither. They were slaughtered by 
the barons for being attached to the lung, and were also slaughtered by 
the king’s party for being attached to the barons. If they were attached 
to either it certainly was one of the most unfortunate attachments we 
ever heard of, and the strength of the attachment must have been great 
which could have survived such horrible treatment. 

On the 14th of May, 1264, the king’s party and that of Leicester 
met in battle. His majesty was at Lewes, in a hollow, where he thought 
himself deep enough to have got into a position of safety. The earl 
was upon the Downs, which Wykes calls a “ downy move,” for the spot 
was raised, and commanded a view of the movements of the sovereign. 
Leicester commenced the attack, which soon became general. Prince 
Edward charged the London militia, who could have charged pretty 


CHAP. I.] 


CIVIL WARS IN ENGLAND. 


127 


well in return had they been behind their counters; but they had no 
idea of selling their lives at any price. They accordingly fled in all 
directions, and the prince paid them off all he owed them for the man¬ 
ner in which they had served his mother. Leicester concentrated his 
force upon the king, to whom he gave personally a sound thrashing. 
Having cudgelled the monarch to his heart’s content, he took him into 
custody. Prince Edward was also seized, but the latter escaped on the 
Thursday in Whitsun week, 1265, and raised a powerful force, with 
which he marched to Evesham against his father’s enemies 

Leicester had formed a camp near Kenilworth, and having got the 
king still in his possession, he encased the poor old man in armour, put 
him on a horse, and turned him into the field on the morning of the 
battle. The veteran was soon dismounted, and was on the point of 
being killed, when he roared out “ Hollo ! stop! I am Henry of Win¬ 
chester ! ” His son recognising his voice, seized him and literally 
bundled him into a place of safety. “What do you do here?” muttered 
Edward, somewhat annoyed, but the aged Henry could not explain a 
circumstance which might have played old Harry with the cause of the 
royalists. Leicester’s horse fell under him, but the earl bounding to 
his feet, continued to fight, until finding the matter getting serious, he 
paused to inquire whether the royalists gave quarter. “ There is no 
quarter for traitors,” was the only reply he received, followed by a poke 
in the shape of a home-thrust from the sword of one of the enemy 
Deprived of their leader, Leicester's followers had nothing to follow, and 
the royalists obtained a victory. The king was now restored to power, 
but there were still a few rebels in the forest of Hampshire, one of 
whom, named Adam Gourdon, came to a personal contest with Prince 
Edward, who got him down, placed his foot on his chest, and generously 
restored him to liberty. Gourdon was introduced to the queen the . 
same night as a sort of prize rebel, and became a faithful adherent to 
the royal family. 

Henry was now left at home all by himself, his son Edward having 
gone to Palestine. The old man often wrote to request the Prince to 
return, for his majesty found himself unequal to the bother of ruling a 
people still disposed to be occasionally turbulent. A sedition had broken 
out at Norwich, which Henry had gone to quell, and he was on his way 
back to London, when he was laid up at St. Edmond’s Bury by indis¬ 
position. Being considered a slight illness, it was at first slighted, but 
the royal patient became worse, and he died on the 16th of November, 
1272, at the respectable age of sixty-eight, according to one historian,* 
sixty-four according to a second,! and sixty-six according to a thirds 
The last seems to be the nearest to the truth, for Henry had been a 
king about fifty-six years, and he was about ten when he came to the 
throne He was buried at Westminster Abbey, where for nothing on 
Sundays and for twopence on week days, posterity may see his tomb. 


* Macfarlane. 


*J* Hume. 


Rapin. 


128 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


.'BOOK III 


The character of Henry III. was an odd compound, a species of 
physiological grog, a mixture of generous spirit and weak water, the 
latter predominating over the former in a very considerable degree. 
He was exceedingly fond of money, of which he extracted such enormous 
quantities from his subjects, that if the heart and the pocket were 
synonymous, as they have sometimes been called, Henry would have 
had the fullest possession of the hearts of his people. His manner 
must have been rather persuasive ; for if the Parliament refused a 
subsidy at first, they were always talked over by his majesty, and made 
to relax their purse-strings before the sitting closed. Some gratitude 
may perhaps be due to him on account of his patronage of literature, for 
he started the practice of keeping a poet, in an age when poets found 
considerable difficulty in keeping themselves. The bard alluded to was 
one Master Henry, who received on one occasion a hundred shillings, * 
and was subsequently “ ordered ten pounds ; ” but, considering the 
unpunctuality of the king in money matters, it is doubtful whether 
the order for ten pounds was ever honoured. The persecution of the 
Jews was among the most remarkable features of the career of the king, 
who used to demand enormous sums of them, and threatened to hang 
them if they refused compliance. In this he only followed the example 
of his father, John, who, it is said, demanded ten thousand marks of an 
unfortunate Jew, one of whose teeth was pulled out every day, until he 
paid the money. It is stated by Matthew Parisf that seven were extracted 
before the cash was forthcoming. This was undoubtedly the fact, hut it 
is not generally known, that, with the cunning of his race, the Jew con¬ 
trived to get some advantage out of the treatment to which he was 
subjected. It is said that he exclaimed, after the last operation had 
been performed, “ They don't know it, hut them teeth was all decayed. 
There’s not ashound von among the lot, so I Ve done ’em nicely; ” and 
with this piece of consolation, he paid the money. 

To Henry’s reign has also been attributed the origin of the custom of 
sending deputies to Parliament to represent the commons, a practice 
that we find from looking over the list of the lower house, is liable to 
be in some cases greatly abused. We may in conclusion, say of Henry 
III. that, “ take him for all in all,” as the poet says, “ we shall never ” 
—-that is to say, we hope we shall never—“ look upon his like again.” 


* Madox, page 268. 


f Page 160. 


CHAP. II 1 


ACCESSION OF EDWARD I 


129 


CHAPTER THE SECOND 


EDWARD THE FIRST, SURNAMED LONGSHANKS. 



dwaRP was the first king 
who came to the throne 
like a gentleman, with¬ 
out any of that inde¬ 
cent clutching of the 
crown and sacking of 
the treasury which hail 
been practised by al¬ 
most every one of his 
predecessors. Perhaps 
his absence from Eng- 
land was the chief 
cause of this forbear¬ 
ance ; but it is at all 
events refreshing to 
meet with a sovereign 
whose accession was 
not marked by a bur¬ 
glary upon the premises 
where the public trea 
sure happened to be 
deposited. 

On the 20th of No 


vember, 1272, four days 

after his father's death, Edward was proclaimed king by the barons at 
the New Temple. It was probably under the shade of the old fig-tree 
in Fig-Tree Court, that they read his titles of King of England, Lord 
of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine. Edward had been engaged in the 
crusades, as one of those fighting missionaries who conveyed “ sermons 
in stones ” through the medium of slings, and knocked unbelief literally 
upon the head with the Christian battle-axe. One day he nearly lost 

his life, by the hands of an assassin, disguised as a postman from the 

Emir of Jaffa, who, feigning a wish to be converted, had opened a cor¬ 
respondence with Edward. 

The English prince was lying in his robe-de-chambre on a couch, 
when the usual salaam—the emir’s postman’s knock—-was made 
at the door of his apartment. The messenger had brought a letter, of 
which Edward had scarcely broken the wax, when his doom was nearly 
sealed by a blow from a dagger, hidden in the postman’s sleeve. The 
prince parried the attack with his arms, which were his only weapons, 

until, wresting the dirk from his assailant’s hands, he used it to put 

£ 






















130 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK III. 

a period to the existence of the would-be murderer, by a process of punc¬ 
tuation which no grammarian has attempted to describe. 

Edward s wound was not deep, but his enemies had been deep enough 
to introduce some venom into it. When he heard the fact lie gave 
himself up to despair, for he considered that his existence was irretriev¬ 
ably poisoned. A romantic story is told of Queen Eleanor having 
sucked the poison from her husband’s arm, but it is quite certain that 
such succour was never afforded him, and the anecdote is therefore not 
worth the straw that the operation would have required. The prince 
owed his recovery to the prompt attendance of an English surgeon, who 
happened to be settled at Acre, and to some drugs supplied by the 
Grand Master of the Templars, who opened his heart and his chest— 
of medicine—for the relief of the suffering Edward. There is no doubt 
that Eleanor had sufficient affection for her husband, to have prompted 
her to draw the poison into her mouth had it ever entered her head; 
but the fact appears to be that the remedy was never thought of until a 
century after the infliction of the wound, which was a little too late to 
be of service to the patient, though nothing is ever too late to be made 
use of by the chroniclers. The notion was too good to be rejected by 
these very credulous gentlemen, who are easily induced to convert 
might have been, into has been, when the latter course is better adapted 
for exciting an agreeable interest. 

Feeling tolerably secure of the throne, he was in no hurry to take 
possession, but enjoyed an agreeable tofir before returning to England 
He paid a visit to the new pope, his old friend Theobald, though there 
was some difficulty in getting into Theobald’s road, for his Holiness had 
left Rome for Civita Vecchia. Edward spent some time in Italy, for 
among the many irons he had in the fire were two or three Italian 
irons, which he desired to look after before arriving in his own country 
He next visited Paris, and instead of coming straight home with the 
diligence that might have been expected, he turned back to Guienne, 
where he was invited by the Count of Chalons to a tournament. 

“ ’Twas in the merry month of May,” in the year twelve hundred and 
seventy-four, “ When bees from flower to flower did hum,” exactly as 
they do in the present day, that the parties met lance to lance, each 
attended by a host of champions. Edward brought one thousand with 
him, but the Count of Chalons came with two thousand, an incident 
which at once raised a suspicion that the chivalrous knight intended foul 
play towards his royal antagonist. A tournament in sport soon became 
a battle in earnest, and the count rushed upon Edward, grasping him 
by the neck to embrace the opportunity of unhorsing him. Nothing, 
however, could make him resign his seat, and the Count of Chalons was 
soon licking the dust, or rather, the saw-dust spread over the arena in 
which the tournament was given. Edward was so angry at the trick 
which had been played, that he hit his antagonist several times while 
down, and. kept hammering at the armour of the count like a smith at 
an anvil The Count of Chalons roared out lustily for mercy, but Edward 























































































































































































































CHAP. II.J EDWARDS ARRIVAL IN ENGIiAND AND CORONATION. 181 

refusing to grant it, continued to “ give it him ” in another sense for 
several minutes. At length the count offered to surrender his sword, 



Edward and the Count of Chalons. 


which was ignominiously rejected by the English king, who called up a 
common foot soldier to take away the dishonoured weapon. 

It was not till the year 1274, that Edward thought of returning to 
England, and he sent over to order his coronation dinner on a scale 
that would have done honour to a mayoral banquet. The bill of fare 
included so many heads of cattle, that the shortest way to get through 
the cooking would have been to light a fire under Leadenhall Market, 
and roast the whole of the contents by a single operation. If such 
a feast had really taken place, it was enough to put the times out 
of joint for a twelvemonth afterwards. On the 2nd of August, 
1274, Edward arrived at Dover, and on the 19th of the same month 
he was crowned at Westminster Abbey, with his wife, Eleanor. This 
was the wonderful woman who was erroneously alleged to have sucked the 
poison from her husband’s arm, a feat that has had no parallel in 
modern times, if we except the individual who undertook to swallow 
liquid lead and arsenic before a generous British public, and who, by 
surviving the operation, gave great offence to a portion of the enlightened 
audience. Edward, on coming to England, found plenty of loyalty, but 
very little cash; and though he had no objection to reign in the hearts 
of his people, he felt the necessity of making himself also master of 
their pockets. A crown without money would have been a mere tin 

k 2 






















































































132 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


kettle, tied to the head, instead of the tail, of the unlucky dog who 
might be compelled to wear it. The king turned his attention to the 
unfortunate Jews, who seemed to be tolerated in England as human 
bees, employed in collecting the sweets of wealth only for the purpose 
of having it taken away from them. Edward literally emptied them 
out of the kingdom, for the purpose of plundering their hives more 
effectually. He allowed some of them their travelling expenses out of 
England, but even this was more than they required in many cases, for 
the inhabitants of the ports saved the Jews the cost of their journey by 
most inhumanly drowning them. 

Edward, however unjust himself, disliked injustice in others ; and in¬ 
deed, with the common jealousy of dealers on a very large scale, he seemed 
to desire a monopoly of all the robbery and oppression practised within 
his own dominions. In the year 1289, the judicial bench was disgraced 
by a set of extortioners whose existence we can scarcely comprehend in 
the present age, when a corrupt judge would be as difficult to find as 
the philosopher’s stone, or as that desirable but impossible boon to 
the briefless barrister, perpetual motion. The Chief Justice of the 
King’s Bench had actually encouraged his own servants to commit 
murder, for the sake of the fees that would accrue upon the trial, and, 
of course, the acquittal of the culprits. The Chief Baron of the Ex¬ 
chequer had kept all the money paid into court upon every action that 
had been tried, and was even discovered going disgraceful snacks with 
the usher in illegal charges upon suitors. As to the puisnes, they had 
been detected in selling their judgments in banco at so much a folio, 
and even hiring pickpockets to rob the leading counsel as they went out 
of court with their fees in their pockets. The Chancellor had spent 
the money of nearly all his wards, and would never fix a day for a 
decree until he was positively forced, when he would pronounce a 
decision unintelligible to all parties. These disgraceful proceedings 
were made a pretext by the king for taking eighty thousand marks 
from the judges, his majesty observing, that if he took from them all 
the marks they possessed, he could not remove the stains from their 
characters. This shallow sophism, though it might have satisfied the 
king himself, was not consolatory to the judges, nor was it calculated to 
reimburse the people for the losses sustained by judicial delinquency 
It is said that the first clock placed opposite the gate of Westminster 
Hall was purchased with a fine of 800 marks upon the Chief Justice of 
the King’s Bench, and the popular saying “ that’s your time of day ” 
is supposed to have arisen from a sarcasm that used to be addressed by 
the crowd outside to the judicial delinquent. 

As a measure of further extortion, Edward became suddenly very 
particular as to the titles by which the nobles held their estates, and 
sent round commissioners to demand the production of the deeds by 
which the barons acquired their property. Earl de Warenne was 
called upon, among the rest, and desired that the commissioners might 
be politely shown in to him. “ So, gentlemen,” he mildly observed, 


chap. ii.1 

j 


INVASION OF WALES. 


133 


“ you wish to see the title by which I hold my property.” “Exactly so,” 
was the reply, which was followed by a common-place expression of 
sorrow at being obliged to trouble him. “ It is no trouble in the least,” 
rejoined Earl de Warenne, drawing a tremendous sword, which he bran¬ 
dished before the eyes of the commissioners, and begged their close 



Earl de Warenne producing his title to the Commissioners. 


inspection of the title by which his ancestors had acquired his posses 
sions. “You see, gentlemen,” he continued, “there is no flaw to be 
detected, and if after looking at my title you want a specimen of my 
deeds, I can very speedily give you the satisfaction you require.” The 
historian need scarcely add that the commissioners backed out, with an 
observation, “ that a mere abstract of the title—a drawing of the sword 
out of its scabbard—was all that could possibly be required.” 

Edward having other fish to fry, had hitherto neglected Wales, but 
that land of mountains was a scene of frequent risings, which he now de¬ 
termined to “ put down” with promptitude and vigour. Llewellyn, the 
Prince of North Wales, was summoned to London to do homage as a 
tributary to the English crown, but his ambition having been fired by 
some prophecies of the famous Merlin, the fiery Welshman sent word 
that he would not come so far to see Edward, which was equivalent to 
a declaration that he would see him further. The English king having 




































































































































































134 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


resolved to punish so much insolence, about Easter 1277, crossed the 
Dee—not the sea, as some historians have alleged—with a large army 
and blocked poor Llewellyn up in his own principality. His brother 
David having been made an English baron, and married to the daugh¬ 
ter of an English earl, was at first devoted to the English, but his 
native breezes fanned the still dormant flame of patriotism, and he 
joined his brother in resisting the foreign enemy. Edward occupied 
Anglesey, but in crossing over to the main land he found himself in the 
most dreadful straits at the Menai. He lost several hundred men, and 
was obliged to fly for protection to one of his castles, but a king in those 
days could make eveiy Englishmans house his castle, by unceremo¬ 
niously walking into it. Llewellyn was somewhat emboldened by par¬ 
tial success, and foolishly advanced to the valley of the Wye, without any 
one knowing wherefore. Roger, the savage Earl of Mortimer, was 
immediately down upon him, and sacrificed him before he had time even 
to put on his armour, in which he was only half encased when he was 
cruelly set upon by the enemy. He had budded on his greaves, and 
was in the act of putting on his breast-plate over his head when he 
was decapitated with the usual disregard which was at that time 
continually shown to the heads of families. His brother David kept 
cutting about the country with his sword in his hand for at least 
six months, until he was basely betrayed into the hands of the English. 
He was condemned to die the death of traitors, which included a 
series of barbarities too revolting to mention. This sentence, which 
formed a precedent in the punishment of high treason for many ages, 
is one of the most disgraceful facts of our history. It casts a stigma 
upon every parliament and every generation of the people in whose time 
this fearful penalty either was or might have been inflicted. 

The leek of Wales was now entwined with the rose of England, 
and Edward endeavoured to propitiate his newly acquired subjects by 
becoming a resident in the conquered country. His wife Eleanor 
gave birth to a son in the castle of Caernarvon, and he availed himself 
of the circumstance to introduce the infant as a native production, 
giving him the title of Prince of Wales, which has ever since been held 
by the eldest son of the English sovereign. After remaining about* a 
year in Wales, Edward was enabled by the tranquillity of the kingdom 
to take a continental tour, in the course of which he was often appealed 
to as a mutual friend by sovereigns between whom there was any differ¬ 
ence. He acted as arbitrator in the celebrated cause of Anjou against 
Aragon; but while settling the affairs of others, his own were getting 
rather embarrassed, and he was compelled in the year 1289 to return 
to England. 

Upon reaching home he found that Scotland was in that state of 
weakness which offered an eligible opportunity to a royal plunderer. 
The King, Alexander III., had died, leaving a little grandchild of the 
name of Margaret, as his successor. This young lady was the daughter 
of Eric, King of Norway, who wrote over to Edward requesting he would 


CHAP. II.] 


CLAIMANTS FOR THE SCOTTISH CROWN. 


135 


do what he could for her in case of her title being disputed. The 
English sovereign, with a cunning worthy of a certain French old gentle- 


Kiug Edward introducing his Son as Prince of Wales, to his newly acquired Subjects. 



man whom we need not name, recommended a marriage with his son as 
the best mode of protecting the royal damsel. The preliminaries were all 
arranged, and Eric had agreed to forward the little Margaret, who was 
only eight years of age, by the first boat from Norway to Britain. 
The child had been shipped and regularly invoiced, when she fell ill, 
and being put ashore at one of the Orkney Islands, she unfortunately 
died. 

On the death of the queen being made known, claimants to the 
Scottish crown started up in all directions, and it was necessary to find 
the heir by hunting among the descendants of David of Huntingdon. 





















































































































































J36 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


John Baliol was the grandson of David’s eldest daughter, and John's 
grandmother therefore gave Baliol a right to the crown, which was 
disputed by Bruce and Hastings, the sons of the youngest daughters of 
Huntingdon senior, whose only son, Huntingdon junior, died without 
issue. An opening was thus left to the female branches, and the intro¬ 
duction of those charming elements of discord—the ladies—into the 
question of succession, created, of course, all the confusion that arose. 

Edward, having advanced to Norliam, a small town on the English 
side of the Tweed, which, as every one knows, forms a kind of Tweedish 
wrapper for Scotland, appointed a conference, which took place on the 
10th of May, 1291, at which he distinctly stated that he intended 
regulating the succession to the Scotch throne. At this meeting 
Edward himself proposed the first resolution, which pledged the 
assembly to a recognition of the right of the English king not only to do 
what he liked with his own, but to do what he liked with Scotland also, 
which did not belong to him. One gentleman, in the body of the 
assembly, who remains anonymous to this day, ventured to suggest by 
way of amendment, that no answer could be made while the throne was 
vacant, and an adjournment until the next morning was agreed upon. No 
business was, however, done on the morrow, but a further postponement 
till the 2nd of June was eventually carried. When that day arrived 
the attendance was numerous and highly respectable, for on the plat¬ 
form we might have observed no less than eight competitors for the 
crown. Robert Bruce, who was there in excellent health and spirits, 
publicly declared his readiness to refer his claims to Edward’s arbitra¬ 
tion, and all the other claimants did the same. On the next day, Baliol 
made his appearance and followed the example of the others, and it was 
agreed that one hundred and four commissioners should be appointed 
to inquire and report to Edward previous to his giving his final award. 
There is little doubt that this enormous number of commissioners could 
only have been intended to mystify the case, and to leave Edward at 
liberty to settle it his own way; a suspicion that is still further justified 
by his having reserved the right to add, without any limit or restriction, 
to the number of commissioners, and thus make “confusion worse con¬ 
founded ” should occasion require. 

The wily Edward, pretending that it was necessary to the performance 
of his duty as arbitrator, got the kingdom, the castles, and other pro¬ 
perty surrendered into his hands on the 11th of June; though the 
Earl of Angus refused to give up Dundee and Forfar without an in¬ 
demnity, which he stoutly stuck up for, and eventually obtained. None 
of the clergy joined in this disgraceful concession but the Bishop of 
Sodor, who ought to have been the very first to effervesce. The king 
himself went to the principal towns in Scotland with the rolls of 
homage, which were allowed to lie for signature, and he sent attornies, 
empowered to take affidavits, into the various villages. 

At length, on the 3rd of August, the commissioners met for the 
despatch of business, and of course, came to no decision. In the year 


CHAP. II.] 


WILLIAM WAT,]ACE. 137 

following tliey tackled the subject again, but it was found that the more 
they talked about it, the more they differed. Edward, by way of com¬ 
plicating the affair still further, summoned a Parliament to meet at 
Berwick on the 15th of October, 1292, at which Bruce and Baliol were 
fully heard, when the assembly laid down a general proposition that the 
lineal descendant of the eldest sister, however remote in degree, was 
preferable to the nearer in degree, if descended from a younger sister. 
This decision left every thing undecided, and accordingly Edward gave 
judgment that Baliol should be King of Scotland, with the simple 
proviso that Edward should be King of Baliol. The whole affair 
having been “ a sell ” got up between the English sovereign and the 
Scottish claimant, there was no demur on the part of the latter, who 
swore fealty, as he would have sworn that black was white, had such 
been the purport of the oath that his master required. 

Edward took every opportunity of bullying Baliol, and even ordered 
him to come all the wav to Westminster to defend an action brought 
against him for money due from Alexander III., his great grandfather. 
He was also served with process in the paltry suit of self ats Macduff; 
and other writs, to which he was forced to appear in person, were con¬ 
tinually served upon him. For the smallest pecuniary claim the Scotch 
king was compelled to come to England to plead, until his patience at 
last gave way, and he turned refractory. 

Edward was now at war with Philip of France, whom Baliol agreed 
to serve by harassing their mutual enemy. The Scotch king, who was 
at heart a humbug and a coward to the core, became exceedingly in¬ 
solent, from the belief that Edward was somewhat down, and that the 
proper time had arrived for hitting him. The English sovereign, who 
had been harassed at first by the Scotch cur, soon brought him howling 
for mercy, which was accorded on condition of his resigning the kingly 
office, a proposition which Baliol basely submitted to. Edward made a 
triumphal progress through Scotland, and taking a fancy to an old stone, 
upon which the kings had sat to be crowned at Scone, caused the very 
uncomfortable coronation chair to be removed to Westminster.* The 
people of Scotland had always considered this block to be the corner 
stone of their liberties, and its removal seemed to take away the only 
foundation that their hopes of regaining their independence were built 
upon. As long as it was in their country, they believed it would bring 
them good fortune ; but they dreaded the reverse if the stone should be 
removed even so far as a stone’s throw from the borders of Scotland. 
Edward having appointed the Earl de Warenne governor of the van¬ 
quished kingdom, and given away all the appointments that were vacant 
to creatures of his own, returned in triumph to England. 

In the year 1297 William Wallace, commonly known as the hero of 
Scotland, made his first appearance on the stage of history as a 
supernumerary, carrying a banner, for we find him engaged in un¬ 
furling the standard of liberty. He was at first merely the captain 

* Ilemiugford. 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


fjiOOK til 


138 


of a small band of outlaws—a sort of first robber—in the great drama in 
which he was soon to sustain a principal character. He was the second son 
of Sir William Wallace, of Ellers- 
lie, and had all the qualities of 
a melodramatic hero, as far at 
least as we are enabled to judge 
by a description of him written 
a hundred years after his death 
with that minuteness which the 
old chroniclers were so fond of 
adopting when they knew that no 
one had the power of contradicting 
them. The celebrated Bower, 
who continued the Scotichroni- 
con of Fordun, tells us that Wal¬ 
lace was “ broad shouldered, big¬ 
boned, and proportionately cor¬ 
pulent,” so that his shoulders 
were broad enough to bear the bur¬ 
den he undertook; and his being 
corpulent gave him this advantage 
over his enemies, that if they had 
fifty thousand lives, he had un¬ 
doubtedly “ stomach for them 
all.” 

Mr. Tytler, who will perhaps 
excuse us for venturing on Ty tier’s 
ground, informs us in his History 
of Scotland that “ Wallace had an 
iron frame,” so that we have the picture of the man at once before us 
For a quarrel with an English officer he had been banished from his 
home, and by living in fastnesses he acquired some of those loosenesses 
which are inseparable from a roving character. His followers comprised 
a few men of desperate fortunes and bad reputation, who had turned 
patriots, as gentlemen in difficulties generally do ; for it is a remarkable 
fact, that the men who endeavour to discharge a debt to their country are 
those who never think of discharging the debts which they owe to their 
creditors. Success, however, covers a multitude of sins, and Wallace 
with his little band of outlaws, having achieved one or two small 
triumphs, soon found out the fact that the world which sneers at the 
very noblest cause in its early struggles, w r ill always be ready to join 
it in the moment of victory. Wallace having been fortunate in his 
efforts, soon had the co-operation of Sir William Douglas and all his 
vassals; just as Mr. Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League, after having 
been denounced as turbulent demagogues, and threatened with prosecu¬ 
tion, were assisted on the eve of the fulfilment of their object by the 
leaders of the opposition and the principal members of the Government 



Portrait of William Wallace, from an old 
wood block. 

































































CHAP. II.] 


BATTLE OF FALKIRK 


139 


Edward, who had been in Flanders during the commencement of the 
Scotch rebellion, now returned to England, and by way of propitiating 
his subjects, he summoned a Parliament, at which Magna Charta was 
again voluntarily confirmed. It is true he made a cunning effort to 
insert at the end of it the words “ saving always the rights of our 
crown,”* which would have been almost equivalent to striking out all 
the other clauses of the document. The Parliament hotly opposed the 
crafty suggestion, which was accordingly withdrawn, and supplies for 
carrying on the war against the Scotch insurgents were readily granted 
In the summer of 1298, Edward came in person to Scotland at the 
head of a large army. Wallace, instead of waiting for a battle, retired 
slowly before the forces of the English king, clearing off all the pro¬ 
visions on the way, and thus aiming a blow at the stomach of the 
enemy. The invaders advanced, but there was nothing to eat; or as 
Mr. Tytler well expresses it, “ they found an inhospitable desert ” 
where—he might have added—they had occasion for a hospitable 
dinner. Wallace was now at Falkirk, from which he meditated an 
attack upon the king, but Edward, having been apprized of his intention, 
reflected that it was a game at which two could play, and he thought it 
as well to secure the first innings. The English king accordingly, 
finding the ball at his foot, took it up immediately, and at once bowled 
out the Scottish hero. The battle of Falkirk was fought on the 22nd 
of July, 1298, and the Scotch loss is variously stated at ten, fifteen, and 
sixty thousand men. In ordinary matters it is sometimes safe to 
believe half that we hear, but it would be more judicious to limit one’s 
trust to ten per cent, in the records of history. 

The Scotch war had of course been a very expensive business, and 
Edward had been sponging upon his subjects to an alarming extent 
during its continuance. In 1294 he had taken from the clergy half 
their incomes and nearly all their eatables. His purveyors first emptied 
their granaries, then robbed their farm-yards, and ultimately pillaged 
their pantries ; so that the king having already ransacked their pockets, 
the “ reverend fathers,” as he insultingly termed them, were in a very 
pretty predicament. Their larders were laid waste, their safes were no 
longer safe, they could not preserve their jam, their corn was instantly 
sacked, and even their joints of meat, from the leg to the loin, were 
walked off or pur-loined by the order of the sovereign. The pope, who 
had been applied to for protection when they were being deprived of their 
cattle, sent over a bull, which proved of very little use, for he soon 
despatched a second, by which the- first was recalled in all its most 
important provisions. 

The trading classes were not so easily robbed, for when the king 
began to deal with them in his own peculiar fashion, he found them 
rather awkward customers. Some wool had been prepared for shipping 
by the London merchants, when the king’s agents came woel gathering 
to the wharfs, and carried it off with a high hand for the use of the 

* It: pin, vol. iii. page 72, second edition, quarto, 1727. 


140 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK HI. 


sovereign. It is true they promised to pay, and ordered the owners to 
put it down to the bill; but the traders determined that they could not 
do business in that manner. They were joined by some of the nobles, 
and among others by Hereford, the constable, and Norfolk, the marshal 
of England, who had a joint audience of his majesty, who threatened to 
hang them if they did not do his bidding. “ I will neither do so, nor 
hang, sir king,” was Norfolk’s reply, in which Hereford acquiesced ; so 
that it was evident Edward could neither trample on the marshal, nor any 
longer overrun the constable. Thirty bannerets and fifteen hundred gen¬ 
tleman whom the king had dubbed knights joined the two nobles in their 
refusal to dub up,* and Edward wa§ left almost alone. In this dilemma 
he appealed to the people by the old trick of an effective speech, inter¬ 
larded with those clap-traps which he knew so well how to employ. 
He caused a platform to be erected at the door of Westminster Hall, 
and appeared upon it, supported by his son Edward, the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, and the Earl of Warwick. Like the schoolmaster who 
never administered a flogging without saying it hurt him a great deal 
more than the boy, the king told the people that it was more grievous 
to him to exact taxes from his dear people than it could be to them to 
bear the burden. “I am going,” he exclaimed, “to expose myself to 
all the dangers of war for your sakes,” and here he pulled out his pocket- 
handkerchief, behind which he winked at the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
who thrust his tongue into his cheek to show the prelate’s relish for his 
master’s hypocrisy. “ If I return alive,” continued the royal humbug, 
“ I will make you amends for the past; but if I fall, here is my dear 
son (step this way, Ned), place him on the throne (hold your head up, 
stupid), and his gratitude (bow, you blockhead) mil be the reward of 
your fidelity.” Here he fairly swamped his face in tears, while the 
archbishop turned on a couple of fountains, which came gushing through 
his eyes, and the meeting was literally dissolved by the practice 
of this piece of crying injustice towards the people. Not only had he 
melted the hearts of the traders by this manoeuvre, hut he drew streams 
of coin for the liquidation of his debts from their pockets. With the cash 
thus collected he started to join Guy, Earl of Flanders, against Philip 
le Bel, a very pretty sort of fellow, between whom and Edward there 
was a contest for the possession of the daughter of the Guy, the fair 
Philippa. The English king had, as early as 1294, contracted a 
marriage for the Prince of Wales with this young lady, who was only 
nine when the match was agreed upon. The happiness of the Flemish 
infant of course went for nothing in the game of craft and ambition 
which was being played by the intriguing French king, who had no 
other object but the extension of his personal influence. Though he 
may have been the first, he was certainly not the last Philip on the 
throne of France to force the inclinations of royal children on the 
subject of marriage for his own purposes. 

Edward IV. had expended a large amount of English money in pur- 

* Heming, 


CHAP. II.] 


OPPOSITION TO THE TAXES. 


141 


chasing the support of foreign mercenaries, who had no sooner spent 
their wages than they discontinued their services. The English king, 
finding he was likely to get the worst of it, concluded a truce in the 
spring of 1298, and left the unfortunate Guy to fight his own battles. 

Before Edwards return home, the London citizens refused to pay the 
taxes, on the ground of their not having been imposed by the consent 
of Parliament. Many a tax gatherer lost his time and his temper in 
going from door to door, and was told, tauntingly, to collect himself, 



when he sought to collect money for the royal treasury. The king, who 
was at Ghent, tried the never-failing experiment of another confirmation 
of Magna Charta, with the addition of what he called—in a private 
letter to his son—“ a little one in,” namely, a confirmation of the 
Statute de Tallagio non concedendo, which was an act declaring that no 
talliage or aid should be levied without the consent of the Parliament. 
This was the first occasion upon which the nation was formally invested 
with the sole right of raising the supplies, but the investment, after all, 
was not particularly eligible, as the sole right of raising the supplies carries 
with it the sole duty of finding the money Not content with his con- 







































































































































































142 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


firmation of the charter, Edward, in May, 1298, was called upon to 
ratify, at York, the confirmation itself, and thus spread with additional 
butter the constitutional bacon. This he for some time evaded by a 
series of paltry excuses, in which “liead-ache,” “previous engagement,” 
and “ out of town,” were pleaded from time to time, until the barons, 
by following him up, got him into a cul de sac from which there was no 
escaping. He consented at last to ratify, but, in the most dishonourable 
manner, he contrived while signing to smuggle in a clause at the end, 
which, by saving the right of the Crown, rendered the whole document 
a wretched nullity. This was a trick he was much addicted to, for he 
had tried the paltry subterfuge on a previous occasion. The barons, 
when they saw the addition, merely shook their heads, murmured some¬ 
thing about “a do,” and returned to their homes ; but Edward thought 
he should find no difficulty in coming over the citizens. He accordingly 
called a meeting in St. Paul's Churchyard, vdien the confirmation was 
read over, amid cheers, and cries of “ hear ” at the end of every clause, 
until the last, when the shouts of “ Shame ! ” “ No, no ! ” “ It’s a dead 
swindle ! ” and “ Don’t you wish you may get it V ” became truly terrible. 
Edward retained his usual self-possession during the meeting, but 
expressed, in side speeches to his attendants, his fears that the citizens 
were not such fools as he had taken them for. Making a virtue of 
necessity—though, by the way, virtues made out of that material very 
seldom appear to fit, but sit very awkwardly on the wearer—he with¬ 
drew the offensive clause at a Parliament that w r as held soon after 
Easter. 

Edward and Philip, finding it convenient to make up their differences, 
threw overboard their respective allies, the French king giving up the 
Scots, and the English sovereign completely sacrificing the poor old 
Guy of Flanders. This earl has got the name of the Unfortunate, but 
he better deserves the title of the soft Guy, the silly Guy, or the 
Guy that, if there happened to be a difficulty within his reach, was sure 
to blunder into it. He had twice been fool enough to accept an invi¬ 
tation from Philip, and had twice been detained as a prisoner. We 
therefore have little sympathy with him when we hear of his being 
deserted by Edward; for “ the man who ” will continually run his head 
into a noose, must expect to find the stringency of the string at some 
time or another. 

Peace was made between the French and English kings by means of 
two marriages; but it seems rash to calculate upon matrimony as a 
source of quietude. Edward, who was a widower, married Philip’s 
sister, Margaret, and the Prince of Wales was affianced to little Isabella, 
aged only six years, the daughter of the French sovereign. A treaty 
was concluded between the two countries on the 20tli of May, 1303, by 
which Edward took Guienne, and gave up Flanders. The unhappy 
Guy was sent thither to negociate a peace with his own subjects, but, 
like everything else he undertook, the poor old man made a sad mess 
of it. Returning to Philip with the news of his failure, he was com- 


CHAP. II.] 


ROBERT BRUCE.-DEATH OF EDWARD 


143 


mitted to prison, which really, considering all things, seems to have 
been the best place for him. He was, at all events, out of harm’s way, 
and prevented from doing mischief to himself and others by his pro¬ 
voking stupidity. He remained in custody till he died, but it was said 
of him by a contemporary that he was never known to “ look alive ” 
during the whole of his existence. 

Edward, having settled his dispute with France, had time to turn his 
attention to Scotland, which had always been his “ great difficulty,” as 
Ireland became the “ great difficulty ” to England at a later period. 
The English king advanced against the Scotch in a sort of hop-scotch 
style, first making for the North, then returning to the South, or going 
to the East, in a zig-zag direction. The Scots soon surrendered, and 
were allowed to go scot-free, with a very few exceptions. Stirling Castle 
proved itself possessed of sterling qualities. It held out against the 
besiegers with determined obstinacy, and Edward himself came to assist 
by throwing stones, which caused the remark to be made that the king 
had been brought to a very pretty pitch through the audacity of the 
Scotch rebels. When the provisions were exhausted, the garrison made 
an unprovisional surrender, and the governor gave out that he gave in, 
with all his companions. Wallace, having been betrayed into Edward’s 
power, was cruelly murdered; but within six months of his death, 
Liberty, like a new-born infant, was in arms once more in Scotland. 
.Robert Bruce, the grandson of old Bruce, was the new champion of his 
native land, and intrusted his scheme to Comyn. The latter proved 
treacherous, and Bruce, seeing what was Comyn, or rather, what Comyn 
was, killed him right off out of the way, in a convent at Dumfries. 
Young Bruce having mustered a party of about a dozen friends, took an 
excursion with them to Scone, where, in the course of a kind of pic-nic 
party, he was crowned on the ‘27th of March, 1306, with some solemnity. 
Edward was at Winchester when he heard the news, and, though very 
far from well, he determined on being carried to Scotland. Like John, 
who had been dragged about the country in a horse-box till within a few 
hours of his death, Edward was packed on a litter and conveyed with 
care to Carlisle, whence he wished to be forwarded to Scotland. Making 
a desperate effort, he mounted his horse, and went six miles in four 
days, a pace which could only have been performed by an equestrian 
prodigy; for the slowest animal, unless he were a determined jibber, 
could scarcely have accomplished a task so difficult.* This anything 
but “ rapid act of horsemanship ” was the last act of Edward’s reign, for 
having got to Burgh upon the Sands, he found the sand of his existence 
had run out, on the 7th of July, 1307. He had lived sixty-eight years, 
and had reigned during half that time; so that for him the stream of 
life had been a sort of half-and-half—an equal mixture—crowned by a 
frothy, foamy diadem. His remains were, some short time afterwards, 

* It is possible that the horse hired by the king on this occasion may have been accus¬ 
tomed to draw a fly, the owner of which may have been in the habit of charging by the 
hour 


COM TO HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


144 


[book in. 


sent to Westminster, via Waltham, and were buried on the 8th of 
October, with those of his father Henry 

The character of Edward has been generally praised, but we are 
compelled to tender a bill of exceptions to the report of previous 
historians. He certainly added to his dominions, but if this is a merit, 
it may be claimed for any man who, by fraud or violence, increases his 
own property at the expense of his neighbours. The improvements 
effected in his reign were rather in spite of him than owing to his sense 
of justice or his liberality. He had the talent of talking people out of 
their money, but this quality he has only shared with many equally accom¬ 
plished, but less exalted, swindlers. His attempt to smuggle a clause 
into Magna Charta, before the face of the citizens, was an act calculated 
to ruin him in the City, where putting one’s hand to paper is a pro¬ 
ceeding that must not be trifled with. His treatment of Wallace proves 
him to have been a cruel and vindictive enemy ; his abandonment of the 
poor Earl of Flanders shows that he was an insincere and treacherous 
friend: he was constant to his hatreds, and fickle in his likings: his 
animosity had the strength of fire, but in him the milk of human kind¬ 
ness was greatly diluted with water. He made some good laws, such 
as the statute of mortmain, which was first passed in his reign, but so 
far from there being any truth in the proverb, necessitas non habet legem , 
it is certain that necessity produced nearly every good law that Edward 
gave to his people. 

In person, he was a head taller than the ordinary size, with black 
hair that curlod naturally, and eyes that matched the hair in colour.* 
His legs were too long in proportion to his body, which gained him the 
nickname of Longshanks, though it would have been more respectful to 
have called him Daddy Long-legs, in allusion to his being the father 
of his people. 

He observed the outward decencies of life, but in this he evinced the 
strength of his hypocrisy rather than the extent of his morality. It 
may be worthy of remark, that the title of Baron, which had hitherto 
been common to all gentlemen who held lands of the Crown, was in this 
reign restricted to those whom the king called to Parliament.! During 
the monarchy of Edward, Roger Bacon lived and died; but as w r e have 
already expressed our antipathy to putting butter upon Bacon, we refrain 
from any eulogy upon that illustrious character. 

* Rapin, Vol. III., page 88. 

t The last of the N on-Parliamen tary barons is the well-known Baron Nathan of 
Kennington. He still claims a seat among the Piers of Gravesend and Roslierville. 


CHAP. ITT 1 


Edward’s partiality for gaveston. 


145 


CHAPTER THE THIRD. 

EDWARD THE SECOND, SURNAMED OF CAERNARVON 

dward II. was, in common phraseo¬ 
logy, a very nice young man when 
he came to the throne, being twenty- 
three years of age, and tolerably 
good-looking, though he turned out 
eventually, according to one of the 
chroniclers of the times, “a very 
ugly customer.” His first step on 
coming to the throne was to send 
for a scamp named Piers Gaves¬ 
ton, a Gascon youth who was full 
of gasconade, and had been sent 
out of England by the late king as 
an improper character. Young 
Edward who had been much attached 
to this early specimen of the gent., 
recalled Piers Gaveston, and made 
him a nobleman by creating him Duke of Cornwall, but never suc¬ 
ceeded in making him a gentleman. This step was in direct violation of a 
solemn promise to Edward I., who had warned his son against Gaveston, as 
a bad young man and by no means a desirable acquaintance for an English 
sovereign. Directly Piers arrived, he and his young master began to 
play all sorts of tricks, and, by*way of change, dismissed the Chancellor, 
the Treasurer, the Barons of the Exchequer, and all the Judges. The 
whole of the judicial staff of the kingdom being thrown out of employ, 
a panic was created in all the courts, and some of their lordships, being 
unable to meet the demands upon them, were compelled to go to prison. 
Many were stripped of all their property by the king, at the instigation 
of Gaveston, and the Chancellor not only lost the seals, but his watch, 
and a number of other articles of value. Edward and his friend were 
determined to pay off those who had been instrumental to the latter’s 
disgrace, and among others, Langton, the Bishop of Lichfield, was put 
into solitary confinement, no one being allowed to speak to him, so that 
the unfortunate Lichfield found himself literally sent to Coventry 
Gaveston, who was a dashing young spark, nearly set England in a 
blaze by his return, for he was very far from popular. He could dance 
and sing, was passionately fond of bagatelle, and as to wine, when he 
took it into his head he could always drink his bottle. 

Edward went over to Boulogne, in January, 1308, to get married to 

L 















































146 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK TII. 


Isabella, the daughter of the King of France, and left Gaveston regent 
of the kingdom. His majesty soon got tired of a French watering-place, 
and returned to England for his coronation, which took place on the 
24th of February, at Westminster. All the honours were showered 
upon Gaveston, and instead of giving the perquisites to the proper 
officers, the king handed them over, one by one, to the favourite 
“ Put that in your pocket, Piers, my boy,” exclaimed Edward, as he 
transferred to his disreputable friend each article that some officer of 
state was entitled to. The English nobility, as they saw everything 
passing into the hands of the Gascon, could only murmur to each other, 
“ What a shame ! ” “ That s mine, by rights ! ” and “ Well, I never ! 
did you ever ? ” But the Bishop of Winchester gave his majesty a dose, 
by mixing up a pretty strong oath and making him swallow every word 
of it. He undertook of course to confirm the Charter, which really 
becomes quite a bore to the historian, who cannot help feeling something 
of the satiety induced by toujours perdrix, and he draws the humiliating 
conclusion that his countrymen, having got hold of a good thing, never 
knew when they had had enough of it. Gaveston’s conduct became so 
overbearing, that a regular British cry of “ Turn him out! ” resounded 
from one end of the kingdom to the other. Englishmen seldom do 



Edward II. and his Favourite. Tiers Gaveston. 












































































































































































































































CHAP. III.] 


BANTSHMENT OF GAVESTON. 


147 


things by halves, and having once raised a shout, they did not desist 
from it, but to the howl of “ Turn him out,” they added a demand for 
the sovereign to “ Throw him over ! ” With this requisition Edward 
reluctantly complied, and Gaveston was expelled from England; but 
only to be made Governor of Ireland, until the king could get the per¬ 
mission of the Barons to allow the favourite to come back again. This, 
with their usual imbecility, they speedily agreed to, and Piers soon returned 
to the Court, which he filled with buffoons and parasites. Any moun¬ 
tebank who could make a fool of himself was sure of an engagement at 
the palace. The lung’s horse-collars were worn out with being grinned 
through, and the family circle of royalty was never without a clown to 
the ring, under the management of Piers Gaveston. The favourite 
himself became so arrogant that he would dress himself up in the 
royal jewels,* wearing the crown instead of his own hat, and turning 
the sceptre into a walking-stick. 

Edward, being in want of supplies, called a Parliament in 1309, but 
the Parliament would not come, which caused him to call again; and 
the more he kept on calling the more they kept on not coming, until 
the month of March, 1310, when they came in arms, for they were 
determined no longer to submit to Gaveston’s insolence. He had 
offended their order by giving them all sorts of nicknames, which are 
less remarkable for their wit than their coarseness. He called the 
Earl of Lancaster an old hog, or, perhaps, a dreadful bore; to Warwick 
he gave the name of the Black Dog, in reply, perhaps, to an insinuation 
that he, Gaveston, was a puppy; and the Earl of Pembroke was allite- 
ratively alluded to as “Joe the Jew,”f by the abusive but not very 
facetious favourite. 

In August, 1311, Edward met the Barons at Westminster. Their 
ordships w’ould seem to have all got out of bed on the wrong side on 
the morning of the assembly, for their surliness and ill-temper were 
utterly unparalleled. They prepared forty-one articles, to which they 
insisted on having the consent of his majesty. Of course, in the 
catalogue of claims our old friend Magna Charts. was not forgotten. 
This glorious instrument of our early liberties, was once more touched 
up, and a new clause introduced, which imparted freshness to the 
document. It provided “ that the king should hold a parliament once 
a year, or twice if need be,” as if the Barons had been impressed with 
the idea that “ the more the merrier,” was a sound maxim of politics. 
The banishment of Gaveston was, however, the grand desideratum, 
and this was at length consented to by Edward, who on the 1st of 
November, 1311, took leave of the favourite. His majesty retired to 
York, but soon began to ask himself—“What’s this dull town to me?” 
in the absence of Piers, who, in less than two months, was again sharing 
the dissipations of his sovereign. The royal party had gone for a 

* II joif/noit a cela une vanite ridicule, en affectant de porter sur sa personne les 
joyaux du Hoi et de la couronnc meme. —Rapin, Yol. III., p. 94. 

'+ Vide Rapin, Yol. III., p. 95, and also a Note in Lingard. 


148 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


change to Newcastle, when the cry of “ somebody coming ” disturbed 
the revels of the king and his courtiers. This unwelcome “ somebody” 
was no less a personage than Edward’s cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, 
who had arrived with a few barons for the purpose of, as they said, 
“ giving it ” to Gaveston. The king and the favourite escaped from 
Newcastle in a ship—probably a collier—but the sovereign was heart¬ 
less enough to leave his wife behind him with the utmost indifference. 
It was sauve qui peut with the whole Court, and the queen was lost in 
the general scamper. The favourite, after running as hard as he could, 
threw himself, quite out of breath, into Scarborough Castle, which was 
strong in everything but eatables, for the supply of provisions was 
perfectly contemptible. Piers Gaveston, who had never been accus¬ 
tomed to short commons, went to the window of the castle, and calling 



Farley between Piers Gaveston and the Earl of Pembroke. 






























































































































































CHAP. III.] 


BATTLE OK BANNOCKBURN. 


149 


out to the Earl of Pembroke, who was waiting outside, proposed to 
capitulate. “ Can we come to any terms?” cried Piers ; but the earl 
would at first hear of nothing short of an unconditional surrender. 
After some parleying, Pembroke exclaimed—“ I 'll tell you what 111 
do for you. If you choose to place yourself in my hands, 111 promise 
to take you to your own castle at Wallingford.” “ You re not joking?” 
cried Gaveston, as he looked through the rusty bars of the fortress. 

“ Honour bright,” was the substance of the earl’s reply, and Piers 
put himself at once into the hands of Pembroke. It was arranged that 
the king should meet the favourite at Wallingford ; but one morning 
on the road, he was ordered out of bed at an unusually early hour, 
when whom should he see upon going down stairs, but the grim Earl of 
Warwick! Gaveston began to feel that it was all up with him. 
Putting him on a mule, they conveyed him to Warwick Castle, where a 
hurried council was got up—the Duke of Lancaster in the chair—for his 
trial. He was of course condemned, when he threw himself for pardon 
at the feet of Lancaster, who lacked him aside, and all the rest gave 
him a lesson on the Lancastrian system, by a similar indignity. A 
proposition was made in the body of the hall, to spare his life, but 
somebodv exclaimed that “Gaveston had been the cause of all their 

V 

difficulties, and that, when a difficulty came in the way, the best plan 
was to break the neck of it.” The stern justice of this remark was 
instantly acknowledg.ed, and amid savage cries of “ Bring him along,” 
they dragged the favourite off to Blacldow Hill, where, by removing his 
head from his shoulders, they made what may be called short work of 
him Upon hearing the news, the king cried for grief, and then cried 
for vengeance. After reconciling himself to his loss, he reconciled 
himself to the Barons, and the double reconciliation was greatly assisted 
by the barons having given up to him (a.d. 1313,) the plate and jewels 
of the deceased favourite. 

EdwarcT, on looking round him, found that the 

“ Scots whom Bruce had often led ” 

were making considerable progress. The English king at once ordered an 
army to meet him at Berwick, and by a given day one hundred thousand 
men had assembled. Bruce had got scarcely forty thousand, so that the 
chances were more than two to one against him. He took them into a 
field near Bannockburn, and spread them out so as to make.the veiy most 
of them. On Sunday, the 23rd of June, 1314, Edward and his army 
came in sight. After some desultory fighting, the monotony of the day's 
proceedings was relieved by a somewhat curious incident. Bruce, who 
seems to have been rather eccentric in his turn-out, was riding on a 
little bit of a pony, quite under the duty imposed upon it, in front of his 
troops. He wore upon his head a skull-cap, o\er that a steel helmet, 
and over that a crown of gold, while in his hand he carried an enormous 
battle-axe. He and his Shetland were frisking about, when an English 
knight, one Henry de Boliun, or Boone, came galloping down, armed 


150 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


at all points, upon a magnificent British dray-horse. Bruce, instead of 
getting out of the way, entered into the unequal combat, amid cries of 
“ Go it, Bob ! ” from his own followers. He instantly fell upon and 
felled to the earth the English knight, amid the acclamations of the 
surrounding soldiers. The battle was very vigorously fought on both 
sides, and victory seemed doubtful, when suddenly there appeared on 
a hill, at the back of the Scotch, an immense crowd, that looked like a 
new army. The group in reality consisted of nothing but a mob of 
suttlers and camp-followers, who had been kept back by Bruce to look 
like a tremendous reserve, and who might be called the heavy scarecrows 
of the Scotch army. The plan succeeded admirably, for although the 
English did not receive a single blow, they were completely panic-struck, 
which had the same effect as the severest beating. They fled in all 
directions, with the Scotch in hot pursuit; and it is said that Edward 
himself had to run for it as far as Dunbar, a distance of sixty miles, 
with the enemy after him. 

According to the Scotch historians, the results of this victory were 
truly marvellous, for the number of prisoners alleged to have been taken 
is actually greater than the number of the combatants. The chariots and 
waggons, it is also said, would have extended for many leagues if drawn 
up into a line; but this is merely one of those lengths which are too 
frequently gone to by the old chroniclers. Though it is impossible that 
the Scotch could have killed fifty thousand, and made double the num 
her of prisoners out of a hundred thousand men,—unless they manufac¬ 
tured fifty thousand additional foes as readily as Yauxhall can put forth 
its fifty thousand additional lamps,—it is, nevertheless, certain that on 
this occasion England experienced the severest defeat it had encountered 
since the establishment of the monarchy. Such was the effect created 
by the battle of Bannockburn, that for some time after three Scotchmen 
were considered equivalent to a hundred Englishmen. There is every 
reason to believe that the Scotch were exceedingly vigorous in coming 
to the scratch at that early period. 

Encouraged by the success of his brother Robert in Scotland, Edward 
Bruce thought that the Crown of Ireland was a little matter that would 
just suit him, and he accordingly passed over to the green isle in the 
hope of finding it green enough to accept him as its sovereign. He 
was for a time successful in his project, and was actually crowned at 
Carrickfergus, on the 2nd of May, 1316. But after knocking about the 
country, and being knocked about in the country, for a year and a half, 
he got a decisive blow from the English, on the 5th of October, 1318, 
at Fagher, near Dundalk. Though he had landed in Ireland with only 
five hundred Scotchmen, he was left dead in the field with two thousand 
of his fellow-countrymen. He had been joined no doubt by several 
after his first arrival, but if he had not, it would have been all the same 
to the Chroniclers, who would not have scrupled to kill the same indi 
viduals four times over, to make a total sufficiently imposing for 
iiistorical purposes. The historians would have been invaluable to a 


CHAP. III.] 


PROMOTION OF THE DESPENCERS. 


151 


minister of finance, for they could always create an enormous surplus 
out of a vast deficiency. 

The Scotch continued their successes until a truce was agreed upon 
for two years, and thus Edward had leisure to look after domestic affairs, 
which had been fearfully neglected. Since the death of Gaveston, the 
royal favourite, there had been just room for one in the not very capa¬ 
cious heart of the English sovereign. A certain Hugh Spencer had 
been introduced to the Court by the barons, as a sort of page, to act 
as a spy upon the king, and it is a curious fact, that the spencer, or 
jacket, has been the characteristic of the page from that time to the 
present Hugh Spencer had a shrewd father, who advised his son to 
care no more for the barons, who had got him his place, but to work it 
to his own advantage, and make the most of the perquisites. 

Young Hugh, taking the parental hint, determined on booking him 
self for the inside place in Edward’s heart, which has been already 
alluded to as vacant. Not only did he succeed in his design, but con¬ 
trived to take up his old father, and carry him along as a sort of outside 
passenger. Riches and promotion were showered on the Spencers, who 
adopted a coat of arms, and made themselves Despencers, by prefixing 
the syllable de, which can impart a particle of aristocracy to the most 
plebeian of patronymics. The Despencers had obtained such influence 
over the king that he allowed them to do as they pleased; and as they 
took all the good things to themselves, the nobles—who were getting 
nothing—began to evince considerable anxiety for the public interest. 

The Earl of Lancaster, a prince of the blood, felt his order insulted 
by the promotion of the two plebeians, and he one day energetically 
exclaimed, “ that Spencers could not have anything in tail, though the 
king might try to fasten it on to them.” Lancaster marched upon 
London, and pitched his tent in Holborn, among the hills that abound 
in that locality. He gave out half jocularly, that “ he had come to 
baste a couple of Spencers, by trimming their jackets,” but he was 
saved the trouble by a Parliament, which met armed at Westminster, 
and passed on the two Despencers a sentence of banishment. 

They were accordingly exiled in August, but came back in October, 
presenting an instance of a quick return without the smallest profit. 
Lancaster retired to the north, and was met at Boroughbridge by Sir 
Simon Ward and Sir Andrew Harclay, a couple of stout English knights, 
who stopped up the passage. Lancaster endeavoured to swim across 
the river, but the tide had turned against him, and he was taken 
prisoner. The unfortunate earl having been tried, was condemned to 
an ignominious death, and the mob were allowed to pelt him with mud 
on his way to execution,—a privilege of which a generous public took 
the fullest advantage. 

Edward had now to encounter opposition from a new quarter, or 
rather from two quarters, for his better half, Isabella, the sister of 
Charles le Bel, was now plotting against him. She left him under the 
pretence of going to settle some business for him in France, and then 


152 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


refused to return to him. Some ambassadors volunteered to bring her 
back, but the ambassadors never came back themselves, for they had 
been in league with the queen, and only wanted an opportunity of 
joining her. 

Their conduct brings to mind the anecdote of a scene that once 
passed in the shop of a shoemaker. A stranger had tried on a pair of 
shoes, and another stranger had been trying on a pair of boots at the 
same moment. Suddenly the shoes decamped without payment, when 
the boots standing upon their professed swiftness, offered to go in pursuit 
of the unprincipled shoes ; and as neither shoes nor boots were ever seen 
again by the tradesman, it is probable that the “ false fleeting perjured 
Clarences ” are still being pursued by the immortal Wellingtons. Thus 
the Earl of Kent, the king’s own brother, the Earl of Richmond, his 
cousin, and others, who had undertaken to go after the queen to bring 
her back, remained with her, until she returned as an enemy to her 
own husband. Edward was now compelled to run away in his turn 
from his angry wife ; and, rather than encounter the fury of a domestic 
storm, he got into a ship with young Despencer, to brave the elements 
Old Despencer was taken and hanged, without the ceremony of a trial. 

The Prince of Wales was appointed guardian of the kingdom on 
account of the absence of his father, who had been regularly advertised, but 
had.declined to come forward lest he should hear of something to his 
disadvantage. Having been tossed about upon the waves for several 
days, he came ashore on the coast of Wales, and hid himself for some 
weeks, with young Despencer and another, in the mountains of Glamor 
ganshire. His two companions were one day startled by a cry of 
“We’ve got you! ” and were instantly seized, upon which, Edward 
exclaiming, “It’s no use: you’ve got the two birds in the hand, and 
may as well have the one in the bush,” rolled out of a hedge and gave 
himself up to his pursuers. Young Despencer was taken to Hereford, 
and hanged at once, upon a gallows fifty feet high; but why severity 
was carried to such a height is a question we have no means of answering. 
It has been brutally said by an annotator that the culprit had been 
accustomed to the high ropes during his life, and it was therefore deter¬ 
mined that they should accompany him even to the gibbet. 

The king was sent in custody to Kenilworth Castle, and Parliament met 
on the 7th of January, 1327, to consider what should be done with him. 
His deposition was a preliminary step ; for it was the custom in those 
days to punish first, and try the culprit afterwards. It was determined 
to place his son upon the throne in his stead, and on the 20th of Janu¬ 
ary, 1327, a deputation went to Kenilworth to receive his abdication, if 
he liked to give it, or to take it by force if he should prove refractory. 
The king, seeing Sir William Trussel, the Speaker, at the head of his 
enemies, observed calmly, but sadly, “ Alas ! the Trussel I depended 
upon for support has joined in dropping me.” He renounced the regal 
dignity, and, on the 24th of January, Edward III. was proclaimed king, 
and crowned on the 29th at Westminster. 


CIIAP. III.] 


DEPOSITION AND DEATH OP EDWARD II. 


158 



Edward II. resigning his Crown. 


This proceeding is on many accounts remarkable, and of the utmost 
value, as settling a point of constitutional practice, which had never 
before been recognised. It established a precedent for dissolving under 
extraordinary circumstances the compact between the king and the 
people. It negatived the alleged “ right divine of kings to govern 
wrong,” and proved that it was not always necessary to take violent 
means for ridding a country of a tyrant. It showed that the crown 
might be removed from the head without taking off the head and all, 
which had been hitherto the recognised mode of effecting a transfer of 
the royal diadem. 

The unhappy Edward was kept for a time at Kenilworth; but 
ultimately by command of Lord Mortimer, who had entire influence 
over the queen, the deposed king was removed to Berkeley Castle 
Here it is believed he was most cruelly murdered, though it was given 
out by his keepers that his death was perfectly natural. He died on 
the 21st of September, 1327, in the forty-third year of his age, and the 
nineteenth of his reign. No inquiry took place, and although no coro¬ 
ner’s inquest was held, “Wilful Murder against some person or persons 
unknown ” is the almost unanimous verdict of posterity. 

The character of this king has been said to have been chiefly dis¬ 
figured by feebleness of judgment, which prevented him from knowing 
what was good for him. He managed, nevertheless, to find out what was 









































































154 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


bad for his subjects, and lie was never at a loss to secure the means of 
enjoyment for himself and his favourites, at the expense of his people. 

In the reign of Edward II. the order of Knights Templars was 
abolished, a circumstance which arose from the King of France being 
short of cash, and casting a longing eye upon the rich possessions of the 
order. In France they were put to the torture to force them into con¬ 
fessions of crimes they had never committed ; but in England the same 
effect was produced by imprisonment; for instruments of cruelty were 
never recognised by English laws, or encouraged as articles of British 
manufacture. The Archbishop of York finding nothing of the kind in 
the country, wished to send abroad for a pattern,* but it must be 
spoken to the credit of our ancestors, that though, in a pecuniary 
sense, they were famous for applying the screw, the thumb-screw was 
never popular. 

Rapin mentions among the great events of this reign, a tremendous 
earthquake, but it can have been no great shakes, for we do not find 
any details of its destructive effects in the old chronicles. It occurred 
on the 14th of November, 1320, to the unspeakable terror of all classes; 
but it did not swallow up half as much as is swallowed up annually on 
the 9tli of November at the Mansion House in London 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

EDWARD THE THIRD. 

The young king did not upon his father’s death come to the throne, 
for he had taken his seat upon the imperial cushion eight months before 
the decease of his by no means lamented parent. Mortimer had caused 
a medal to be struck in celebration of the accession of Edward III., in 
which he was represented receiving the crown, with the motto, “ Non rapit 
seel recipit ,” which we need scarcely translate into “ he did not snatch 
it, but got it honestly. ”f A council of regency was appointed, to which 
Mortimer, with affected modesty, declined to belong, but he and the 
Queen did as they pleased with the affairs of government. Her majesty 
got an enormous grant to pay her debts, but knowing the extravagant 
and dishonest character of the woman, we have reason to believe that 
she pocketed the money and never satisfied the demands of her credi¬ 
tors. She obtained, also, an allowance of twenty thousand a year, which 
was better than two-thirds of the revenues of the crown ; so that a paltry 
six-and eightpence in the pound was the utmost that young Edward 
could have had to live upon. The Earl of Lancaster was appointed 

* Hemingford. 

+ It is a curious fact that Mortimer should have beer, in the medal line, a business in 
which his namesake of the house of Storr & Mortimer has since become so illustrious. 



CHAP. IV.] 


WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 


155 


guardian, and began doing the best for himself, after the approved 
fashion of the period The attainders against the great Earl of Lan¬ 
caster were of course reversed, and the confiscation of the estates of the 
Despencer, afforded some very pretty pickings to the party that was 
now dominant. 

Though the king was too young to govern, his admirers persuaded 
him that he was quite old enough to fight, and he was recommended to 
try his hand against Bruce, who was getting old ; so that, in the lan¬ 
guage of the ring, the British pet was not very ill matched against the 
Scottish veteran. The Caledonian Slasher, as Bruce might justly have 
been called, had broken the truce agreed upon with Edward II., and 
had sent an army into Yorkshire, which plundered as it went every 
town and village. The stealing of sheep and oxen was carried on to 
such an extent by the Scotch troops that their camp resembled Smith- 
field market, or a prize cattle show. Sixty thousand men gathered 
round the standard of Edward, but the foreign and native troops quar¬ 
relled with such fury among themselves that they had little energy left 
to be expended on the enemy. Fortunately for the English king the 
vastness of his army made up for its want of discipline. Bruce, directly 
he saw the foe, waited only to take their number, and retired with the 
utmost rapidity, amusing himself with the Scotch favourite Burns, by 
setting fire to all the villages. 

The English, instead of following the enemy, waited a night upon the 
road for some provisions expected by the Parcels Delivery, which had been 
delayed by some accident. The Scotch were thus allowed to get ahead, 
and Edward sent a crier through his camp, offering a hundred a year, with 
the honour of knighthood, to any one who would apprise him of the place 
where he should find the opposing army. Thomas of Rokeby, so called 
from his habit of rokeing about, was successful in the search, and came 
galloping into the English camp with a loud cry of Eureka, and a demand 
of “ money down,” with knighthood on the spot, before he divulged his 
secret. “ You ’re very particular, Sir,” said Edward, flinging him a 
purse, containing his annuity for the first year, and dubbing him a 
knight by a blow on the head from the flat of the sword, administered 
with unusual vehemence. Thomas of Rokeby having pocketed the 
money, and secured the dignity, pointed to a hill three leagues off, 
observing, “There they are! ” an observation which caused a general 
exclamation of “ Well, it’s very funny ! To think that they should have 
been so near us all the while and we not aware of it! ” The English 
having made for the spot, sent a challenge, inviting the Scotch to meet 
them in a fair, open field, but the proposition was declined, with thanks 
and compliments. The English, on the return of the herald, went to 
sleep, for the presence of the herald always had a soporiferous influenco. 
Edward was exceedingly severe upon the occasion, and commented upon 
the herald’s news, which the king declared was always most unsatis¬ 
factory. For three days and three nights, the English laid by the side 
of the river, having been thrown by the herald into a state of dreamy 


156 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[ROOK III. 


inactivity. At length, on the fourth day, they woke from their transient 
trance, when they found that the Scotch had once more changed their 



Thomas of Rokeby receiving the honour of Knighthood. 


position. Edward moved higher up, keeping opposite to the foe, and 
the two armies lay facing each other for eighteen days and nights, like 
two great cowardly boys, both afraid of “ coming on,” but each assuming 
a menacing attitude. There is every reason to believe that the herald 
had mesmerised the whole of the English troops, for they allowed the 
Scotch to go away in the dead of the night for want of proper vigilance 
The probability, however, is that both armies were illustrating the 
proverb, that “ none are so blind as those who won’t see,” and that 
their aversion to “come on,” was mutual. 

A truce was concluded, and Edward, according to Froissart, returned 
“ right pensive ” to London ; but his “ right pensiveness ” may have 
been accounted for by the fact that he was on the eve of marriage. 
His mother had, during her visit to the Continent, arranged to wed 
him to Philippa of Hainault, a lady who, to judge from her portrait on 
her tomb in Westminster Abbey, was one of those monsters commonly 
called a “fine woman.” This fineness in the female form consists of 
excessive coarseness, which is better adapted to the laundry than the 



























































CHAP IV. J ASSOCIATION OF THE BARONS AGAINST MORTIMER. 157 

domestic circle. She however made Edward an excellent better half, 
or perhaps a better two-thirds is a more suitable term to indicate the 
relative proportions of the royal couple. She was brought to London 
by her uncle John, surnamed of Hainault, and it being Christmas-time, 
she was taken about to enjoy all the amusements of the festive season. 
Jousts and tournaments, balls and dinner-parties, were given in her 
honour during her stay in town; and on the 24tli of January, 1328, 
the nuptial ceremony was performed with great solemnity. 

Edward being now married, was desirous of avoiding that roving life 
which the constant pursuit of Bruce had rendered necessary. The 
English king thought it better to settle down into the domestic habits of 
a family man, which was impossible as long as he was compelled to be 
out all night, watching the foe, and bivouacking with his soldiers. 
Bruce, who had grown old and gouty, was also eager for peace, which 
was concluded on the condition of his little boy, David, aged five, being 
married to Edward’s little sister Joanna, aged seven. The English 
king gave up all claim to the sovereignty of Scotland, causing even the 
insignia of Scotch royalty to be carefully packed and forwarded to Bruce, 
who, on opening the parcel, was delighted to find himself in possession 
of the crown and sceptre of his predecessors. He did not, however, 
get quite the best of the bargain, for he undertook to pay thirty thou¬ 
sand marks into Edward’s Court as compensation, in the form of liqui¬ 
dated damages, for the mischief that the Scotch invaders had committed. 
Bruce had obtained a sort of letter of licence, allowing him to take three 
years for the payment of the sum agreed upon. A more formidable 
creditor, however, took him in execution, for he was called upon to pay 
the debt of Nature within the ensuing twelvemonth. Mortimer, who 
had advised the peace with Scotland, which was by no means popular, 
got himself created Earl of March, for it is the policy of crafty politi¬ 
cians to obtain rewards for their most objectionable measures. 

It will be remembered that the Earl of Lancaster had been appointed 
guardian of the young king, but no scapegrace in a comedy ever made 
such an undutiful ward as the youthful Edward. He remained with his 
mother and Mortimer, the latter of whom was particularly distasteful to 
Lancaster, who endeavoured to get up a party to oppose the favourite. 
This association was joined by the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, two of the 
king’s uncles, as well as by some other gentlemen, who set forth in an 
advertisement the reason of their having combined. The statement of 
grievances was drawn up with the usual tact of red-hot patriots, who 
always put down a few impossibilities in the list of things to be achieved, 
for the impracticability of their objects prevents their trade from being 
suddenly brought to a dead stand-still. There were eight articles in 
the Lancastrian manifesto, which chiefly aimed at Mortimer and the 
queen, who soon persuaded Edward that the real object of the advertisers 
was to deprive him of his crown. “ I. thought you were the parties 
pointed at,” said the young king to his mother and her paramour; but 
the latter merely observing, “ My dear fellow, they mean you, as sure as 


158 


COMIC TIT STORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


my name’s Mortimer,” soon taught Edward to believe that he was the 
object of the hostility of the rebellious nobles. Preparations were being 
made to chastise them, when Kent and Norfolk abandoned Lancaster, 
who justly complained of having been trifled with. The humiliated and 
humbugged Lancaster was glad to accept a pardon, and pay down a 
considerable sum towards the expenses which had been incurred in pre¬ 
paring for his own discomfiture. Mortimer did not forgive the parties 
who had contemplated his overthrow, but formed a determination to get 
hold of them when a good opportunity offered. 

Kent, the king’s uncle, who was rather a feeble-minded person, 
became the victim of “ a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.” He received 
a number of anonymous letters, informing him that his brother, the late 
king, was alive, in Corfe Castle. “ Pooh, pooh,” said Kent to himself, 
as he perused the first three or four epistles ; “I’m not quite such a 
fool as to be taken in upon that point. I’m not going to believe my 
brother is alive, when I happen to have been present as chief mourner 
at his funeral.” Every post, however, brought such a pile of corre¬ 
spondence upon the subject that he first began to believe that half of 
what he was told might possibly be true, and when credulity admits one 
half of a story, the other half soon forces an entrance. Kent’s anony¬ 
mous correspondents, not content with declaring the late king to be alive, 
gave the circumstantiality to their statement which is generally resorted 
to in the absence of truth, and indicated Corfe Castle as the place where 
the second Edward was “ hanging out ” at that very mometit. The 
credulous Kent being in doubt as to the fate of his brother, wrote at 
once to ask him whether he was really dead or alive ; saying to himself 
as he put the epistle into the post, “ There; I Ve written to him now, 
and so we shall soon settle that question one way or the other.” 

The party being deceased, the letter came back to the dead-letter- 
office, and fell into the clutches of Mortimer. Everything was done to 
humour the delusion of poor Kent, who, having been told that his 
brother was confined in Corfe Castle, sent a confidential messenger to 
make inquiries in the neighbourhood. It is even said that a sort of 
optical illusion, a jack-o’-lantern, or phantasmagoria, or dissolving view, 
had been resorted to, for the purpose of showing a representation of 
Edward II. sitting in Corfe Castle at his luncheon,* with a waiter or 
two in attendance, as a mark of respect to the unhappy sovereign. 

The messenger returned with the news to Edmond, who determined 
to use his own eyes, by going to Corfe Castle and judging for himself. 
When he arrived and saw the governor, that wily official pretended to 
be much surprised at the secret having been divulged. He did not 
deny that Edmond was at the castle, but merely remarked that the 
captive could not be seen. “ At all events you can give him this letter,” 
said Edward, putting into the governor’s hands a douceur and a commu¬ 
nication directed to the deceased monarch, offering to aid him in his 
escape from captivity 

* Rapin, tom. iii., p. 152. 


CHAP. IV.] EDWARDS ASSERTION OF HIS RIGHTS. 159 

The governor took the billet to the queen, and Edmond was arrested 
on a charge of endeavouring to raise a deceased individual to the throne. 
Poor Kent was put upon his trial, and his own letter having been pro¬ 
duced, with witnesses to prove his hand-writing, the case against him 
was complete. The whole proceeding was disposed of with the rapidity 
of an undefended cause ; speedy execution was asked for and granted, 
but the headsman was nowhere to he found, though persons were sent to 
look for him all over Winchester. A delay of four hours was occasioned, 
and the generous British public began to expect that they should lose 
the spectacle they had assembled to witness, when a convicted felon 
came forward in the handsomest manner, at a moment’s notice, to pre¬ 
vent disappointment, by undertaking the part of headsman. Thus, at 
the early age of twenty-eight, perished Prince Edmond, on the 
charge of having sought to put a sceptre in the hands of a spectre, and 
raise a phantom to the throne. He left two sons and two daughters, 
one of whom was a beauty whom we will not attempt to paint, for our 
inkstand is not a rouge-pot, and if it were we should be sorry to apply 
its contents to so fair a countenance. She married eventually the 
eldest son of Edward the Third, who became so celebrated as the 
Black Prince, and who was born at about the period (1330) to which our 
history has arrived. The king finding himself a father, determined 
to be no longer a child in the hands of a tyrannical mother, and he 
longed for some assistance from his subjects, to enable him to throw 
off the maternal yoke as soon as possible. 

Edward at last opened his mind—a very small recess—to Lord 
Montacute. A parliament was being held at Nottingham, where Mor¬ 
timer and the queen had lodgings in the Castle, while the Bishops and 
Barons took apartments in the town and suburbs. How to get hold of 
Mortimer was the great difficulty, for queen Isabella had the keys of 
the Castle brought up to her every evening, and placed at her bedside.* 
Her majesty had gone round as usual to see everything safe, and all 
the candles out; but of course, like other sagacious people, who examine 
minutely the fastenings of the doors, she never gave a thought to the 
cellars. Through one of these the governor, (who, like all the great 
officers of that period—the founders of our illustrious families—was a 
sneaking knave, ready to do anything for money,) admitted Montacute 
and his followers. They crawled along a dark passage, at the end of 
which they w r ere met by Edward, who conducted them up a staircase 
into a room adjoining his mother’s chamber. The queen had gone to 
bed, but Mortimer, the Bishop of Lincoln, and one or two others, were 
sitting—probably over their grog—in an apartment close at hand 
Their language had all the earnestness that might be expected froir 
the time of night, and the manner in which they were occupied. They 
were, in fact, all talking at once, when Montacute and party rushed in, 
knocking down two knights f who sat near the door, and seized Mor- 


* Heming, Knyght, Holinshed. 


+ Knyght, Ilening, Rymer. 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


163 


[book III 


timer, in spite of the entreaties of Isabella, who ran screaming out of bed 
on hearing the noise and confusion. 

The favourite was dragged off to the nearest station-house, and 
Edward issued a proclamation the next morning, announcing his in ten- 
ti n to try his own hand at government forthwith. A parliament met 
at Westminster on the 26th of November, 1330, by which Mortimer 
was tried and condemned, though a short time before he enjoyed the 
command of a large majority. The favourite had, however, fallen into 
disgrace, and the old proverb, “ Give a dog a bad name and hang him,” 
was literally realised. 

/fter the death of Mortimer, queen Isabella was shut up in a 
place called the Castle of Risings, on a pension of three thousand a 
year, according to one historian, four thousand according to others, 
while Rapin unceremoniously cuts her down to the paltry pittance of 
five hundred per annum. It is probable that the last-named sum is the 
nearest the mark, for all agree in saying that “ she lived a miserable 
monument of blighted ambition,” and it is obvious that a miserable 
monument would not require an outlay of three or four thousand a year 
to keep it in condition during an existence of rather better than a 
quarter of a century. 

Though Edward had agreed to a truce with the Scotch, he did not 
scruple to take a favourable opportunity of breaking it. Though his 
sister was married to little Master David Bruce, the nominal king, 
Edward did not hesitate to turn that young gentleman off the throne, to 
make way for his creature, Edward Baliol. Young David was sent to 
France, while Baliol kept up a kind of semblance of royalty, but his 
rebellious subjects took every opportunity, when the backs of the English 
were turned, to fall upon and baste the bewildered Baliol. Edward 
was soon compelled to leave his vassal to get on as he could, for the 
entire throne of France appeared to be open to the ambition of the 
English sovereign. The French crown seemed to be “ open to all 
parties and influenced by none,” when Edward of England and Philip 
of Yalois became candidates for the vacancy. The former claimed as 
grandson of Philip IV., the latter as grandson of Philip III., and each 
party endeavoured to complicate the matter as much as he could by 
producing a number of perplexing and unintelligible pedigrees. Philip 
claimed through his grandfather, who was thought to be a sure card for 
the French king to depend upon; but Edward tried to play something 
stronger, in the shape of what he affectionately called that “ fine old 
trump, his mother.” She, however, was objected to as a female, and the 
question was, to save further trouble, referred to the arbitration of the 
peers and judges of France, who decided in favour of Edwards op¬ 
ponent. The English king declared the French judges were no judges at 
all, and refused to be bound by the award ; for it was the royal prac¬ 
tice of those days to abide by an agreement only so long as might be 
convenient. 


CHAP. IV.] 


EDWARD PAWNS THE CROWN. 


L61 


Edward having appointed the Earl of Brabant his agent, coolly de¬ 
manded, through that individual, the French crown. The English 
seconded their sovereign in his preposterous request, and he took ad¬ 
vantage of their acquiescence to squeeze out of them all he could in the 
shape of subsidies, tallages, and forced loans. He raised money by the 
most disgraceful means, and even pawned the crown with the Archbishop 
of Treves, who after trying the purity of the gold with the usual test, 
unpicking the velvet cap, to examine the setting of the jewels, and sub¬ 
mitting it to as many indignities as a hat in the hands of an old clothes- 
man, consented to lend about one tenth of its value on the degraded 
diadem. 



Edward pawning the Crown with the Archbishop of Treves. 


The conversation between the parties, though it has not been authen 
tically handed down by the chroniclers, may be very easily imagined. 
It is probable that Edward, forgetting the dignity of the king in the 
meanness of the borrower, may have familiarly asked the Archbishop to 
44 make it a trifle more ” than the sum at first offered. It may be pre¬ 
sumed that the greedy ecclesiastic would have objected, that the crown 
had been very ill-used ; that it got badly treated in the time of John, 
and that even Edward himself had had a good deal of hard wear out of 

M 



















































































































































162 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK lit 


it, which had rubbed off very much of its pristine brilliancy. But it was 
not to the comparatively honest expedient of pawning his own property 
that the king had recourse, for replenishing his exhausted treasury. When 
he had got all he could by pledging his own honours, and deposited the 
sceptre and single ball at the sign of the three, he began the old royal 
trick of plundering his people. 

From the inhabitants of Cornwall Edward took nearly all their 
tin, and every part of England allowed itself to be fleeced for the 
purpose of affording one man the means of attempting to gratify his 
ambition at the expense of an entire people The money thus obtained 
was devoted to the payment of foreign mercenaries, so that he robbed 
his own subjects for the double purpose of corruption and usurpation. 
To enable him to oppress the French, he bribed the Germans with 
money obtained by plundering the English. 

He sailed on the 15th of July, 1338, with an army rather more select 
than numerous, and landed at Antwerp, where he had secured himself a 
friendly reception by sending emissaries before him to marshal the pea¬ 
santry into enthusiastic groups, and “ get up” the spectacle without 
regard to outlay. The burghers were called to numerous rehearsals 
before the appointed day, and on the arrival of the English king they 
were tolerably perfect in the parts assigned to them. 

Edward engaged a few foreign potentates—principally small Germans 

—to aid him in his audacious enterprise. Louis of Bavaria, Emperor of 

Germany, came to terms ; the Dukes of Brabant and Gueldres did not 

refuse his money; the Archbishop of Cologne consented to add a 

few pounds to his salary; while the Marquis of Juliers, and the Counts 

of ITainault and Namur, jumped at a moderate stipend for their 

services. Every adventurer who was to be had cheap, found instant 

employment, and James von Artaveldt, a brewer of Ghent, the Barclay 

or Perkins of his time, made an arrangement for farming out a few of 

his stoutest draymen. Philip availed himself of a couple of kings in 

reduced circumstances—those of Navarre and Bohemia—besides 

securing a few dukes who were in want of a little cash for current 

expenses. A rope of sand could scarcely have been more fragile than 

Edward’s band of hired followers. Like a Christmas-pudding made of 

plums and other rich ingredients without any flour to bind it, his sup 

porters though comprising a compound of dukes, marquises and counts, 

with even an archbishop and an emperor, was not likely to hold together 

as long as it was deficient in the flower of an army, a zealous soldiery. 

The Flemings and Brabanters having spent his money sneaked off with 

a promise to meet him next year, and 1338 w T as consequently lost in 

doing nothing. By the middle of September 1339, there was another 

muster of the mercenaries, with whom Edward started for Cambrav, but 
f * 7 

happening to look back when he got to the frontiers of France, he saw 
the Counts of Namur and Hainault disgracefully backing out of the 
expedition. Having in vain hallooed to them, and finding that the more 
he kept on calling the more they persevered in not coming, he pushed 


CHAP. IY.J 


NAVAL BATTLE AT SLUY8. 


163 


on as far as St. Quentin, when the rest of his allies struck, and declared 
they would not go another step without an advance of wages. Edward, 
who had spent all his own money and a good deal of somebody else’s,— 
for he was fearfully in debt—could only say “ Very well, gentlemen, I’m 
in your hands,” and turn into the town of Ghent, where he took lodg¬ 
ings for a limited period. While here he amused himself by taking the 
title of King of France, and he had the French lily quartered on his 
arms ; which, as Philip said when he heard of it, was “like the fellow T ’s 
impudence.” 

Edward had previously endeavoured to draw his adversary into a 
battle, hut the latter shirked the contest under various pretexts. Some 
say thathew r as ready for a terrific combat and was “just going to begin” 
when he received a letter predicting ill luck, from the King of Naples, 
who w'as looked upon as a sort of Wizard of the South, or royal conjuror. 
No fight took place, and Edward ran across to England in the middle 
of February 1340, to make a call upon the pockets of his people. The 
Parliament foolishly throwing good money after bad, granted immense 
supplies, for which the king thanked them in the fulness of his heart, 
for the fulness of his pocket. Keturning to Flanders, he met the enemy 
at the harbour of Sluys, on the 24th of June 1340, when a battle en¬ 
sued, in which Edward astonished his own followers by his most suc¬ 
cessful debut in a naval character. He gave orders to the sailors as 
freely as if he had been playing in nautical dramas and dancing naval 
hornpipes from the days of his infancy. So complete was the victory of 
the English that nobody dared inform the French king of the extent of 
his calamity, until the court jester was fool enough to put the news in 
the shape of a conundrum to Philip. The latter was enjoying his glass 
of wine and his nut, when the buffoon in waiting declared that he had a 
nut to crack which would prove somewhat too hard for his royal master. 
“ Were it a pistaccio or a Brazil,” cried the king “ I would come at the 
kernel of it.” When however the riddle was put* and the sovereign 
had guessed it, the unhappy fool found it no joke, for he was sorely 
punished for his ill-judged pleasantry. 

Edward’s success brought round him troops of friends, and finding 
- himself strong, he wrote a letter addressed to Philip of Valois, offering 
to tackle him singly in a regular stand-up fight man to man, to pit a 
hundred soldiers against a hundred on the other side, or to pitch into 
each other’s armies by a pitched battle, embracing the entire strength of 
their respective companies. The French King, who was not disposed 
to give battle, which he thought might end in his taking a thrashing, 
evaded the matter, by saying that he had seen a letter addressed to 
Philip of Valois, but as it could not be meant for him, he should 

* Rapin, vol. iii. page 178. We have used every possible exertion to obtain a copy of 
this celebrated riddle, but without having succeeded. The nearest approach we have made 
to it is an old conundrum in the fly leaf of the Statutes at Large, which is nearly as 

follows :_“ What was the greatest fillip to the success of Edward ?” There is no answer 

added, but there can be little doubt that some allusion to Philip’s loss giving a fillip to 
Edward is intended. 

M 2 


164 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


certainly decline sending an answer. This shabby subterfuge succeeded 
in baffling the English king, who consented to a truce and returned to 
his own country. 

Edward arrived in Eondon late one night in November, without a 



penny in his pocket. He went at once to the Tower, where everybody 
had gone to bed, for he was not expected, and where there were signs of 
culpable negligence. There was no fire in his room, and nothing to eat; 
which put him into such an ill-humour, that he had three of the judges 
called up to be thrown into prison, he turned out the Chancellor, the 
Treasurer, and the Master of the Rolls, besides committing to jail a 
number of subordinate officers. Those who had been employed in col¬ 
lecting the revenue, were the especial objects of his rage, for he 
expected to have received a large sum, and was irritated beyond measure 
at the contemptible amount of available assets. Stratford, the Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury, on hearing of the king’s arrival at the Tower—in 
what has perhaps been since called a “ towering passion,” from the 
Historical fact—observed to his informant, “ Oh ! indeed. Well, I shall 
be off out of his way,” and fled to his official residence. The king sent 















































































































































































































































































CHAP. IV. J 


TRUCE CONCLUDED WITH BRUCE. 


165 


him a summons, which he refused to attend, and threatened with 
excommunication any rascally officer who might attempt to execute the 
process. Want of money soon softened Edward’s heart, and Parliament 
refused a grant until there had been another confirmation of Magna 
Charta, which served the double purpose of a blister to draw the people’s 
cash and a plaster to heal their wounded liberties. 

In the year 1341, little David of Scotland came over with a little 
money and a few troops lent to him by the king of France, and with 
this assistance the Bruce made a tolerably decent appearance in his 
own country. Edward having projects of wholesale robbery abroad, 
gave up Scotland as a piece of retail plunder, that was wholly beneath 
hi 3 attention, and concluded a truce with David, who compromised with 
Baliol, by appointing him to keep watch and ward against the Scottish 



Fancy Portrait of Inspector Baliol. 


borderers. A situation in the police seems to have been a sorry com¬ 
pensation for one who had aspired to a throne, but it is probable that 
the pride of Baliol was in some degree consulted by nominating him 
A. 1, in his new capacity. 

One would have thought that Edward had had enough of continental 
warfare, and that “ look at home ” would have been his motto for the 
remainder of his reign, but he was soon induced to join in a squabble 
that had arisen about the crown of Brittany. John the Third, the late 




































































160 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book in 


Duke, had lately died, leaving one brother and a niece named Jane, who 
having the misfortune to be lame, had got brutally nicknamed La 
Boiteuse, in accordance with the coarse and unfeeling practice of that 
chivalrous period. The contest for the Duchy was between this young 
lady, who had married Charles de Blois, the French king’s nephew, and 
her uncle John de Montfort, who professed to have a superior claim, 
and who savagely pooh-poohed her pretensions by allusions to her 
infirmity. “ Hers is indeed a lame case,” he would fiendishly exclaim. 
“ Why by my troth, she hasn’t got a leg to stand upon.” This 
argument was the old rule of grammar, that the masculine is worthier 
than the feminine; but this arrangement La Boiteuse determined to 
kick against. Charles de Blois, her husband, did homage to his uncle 
Phil for the duchy—Brittany being a fief of France—while John de 
Montfort propitiated Edward by doing homage to him as the lawful 
sovereign. Philip and Edward thus became bottleliolders to the two 
competitors; but through the tardiness of the English king in supporting 
his man, de Montfort was taken prisoner. This gentleman had the 
advantage—or the disadvantage as the case may be—of being married 
to a high-spirited woman. It is fortunate for a man wedded to a vixen 
wife, when the affectionate virago, instead of making a victim of him, 
vents her fury upon his enemies. 

Mrs. de Montfort had, according to Froissart, “ the courage of a man 
and the heart of a lion.” In addition to these fascinating qualities she 
had the tongue of a true woman. She went about with her child in 
her arms, holding forth in a double sense, for she held forth her 
infant, and was continually holding forth on the subject of her hus¬ 
band’s wrongs to the populace. A pretty woman, who takes to public 
speaking, is always sure of an approving audience; but when she began 
to give recitations in character, by putting a steel casque on her head 
and a sword in her hand, the effect was truly marvellous. She took a 
provincial tour, with the never-failing motto of “ Female in Distress ” as 
her watchword; and a host of young men engaged themselves as 
assistants under her banner. She threw herself into a place called 
Hennebon, where she was besieged by the French, but she ran up and 
down the ramparts with all the agility of a young tigress. She stood 
firmly among a shower of arrows, and though danger darted across her 
every now and then—so much that her casque got a rapid succession of 
taps—she merely observed that she had never been afraid of a living 
beau and would certainly not shrink from a bow without vitality. Aid 
was expected from the English, but as it did not arrive the Bishop of 
Leon began to croak most horribly, and proposed to capitulate. The 
Bishop had been to the larder, and finding provisions running exceed¬ 
ingly low, declared there was nothing left for them but to eat humble 
pie as speedily as possible. He had succeeded in raising an emeute 
d'estomac in the garrison, when the Countess, who had begged the troops 
to Hold out a little longer, saw the English fleet from the window of her 
dressing-room. “ Here they are ! ” cried she as she ran down stairs; and 


CHAP. IV.] THE FRENCH RAISE THE SIEGE OF HENNEBON 


167 


the whole of the inhabitants were soon watching the arrival of the boats 
with intense interest. Sir Walter Manny commanded the squadron, 
and after a good night’s rest and a capital dinner the next day, which con¬ 
cluded amid a slight shower from the French battering-ram, he declared 
that he would not run the risk of having any more batter pudding from 
the same quarter. “ That ram,” he exclaimed, “ must not again disturb 
me over my mutton; ” and he had no sooner dined than he went forth, 
followed by a few select soldiers, and broke the instrument to pieces. 

The French, having raised the siege of Hennebon, left Lady de 
Montfort leisure tc go over to England for the purpose of getting a 
present of troops that Edward had promised her. She was returning 
to France with her reinforcements when she fell in with a French fleet, 
and they fell out as a natural consequence. De Montfort’s wife rushed 
cn deck in a coat of mail over her petticoat of female, and fought with 
















































































168 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IIT. 


tremendous vigour. One of the foe tauntingly told her the needle was 
a fitter instrument for her than the sword, when she rushed upon him, 
exclaiming, “ I want no needle, fellow, to trim your jacket.” She cut 
the thread of several existences, and there is no doubt that had the gun 
cotton been discovered in those days, she would have used it for the 
purpose of whipping, basting, hemming in, felling to the earth, and, in 
a word, sewing up her unfortunate antagonists. Darkness having set 
in upon this fearful set out, the battle was cut short, for night dropped 
her curtain in the middle of the act, and brought it to an abrupt 
conclusion. • 

Edward now came over to superintend the war in person, and he 
began by looking the danger in the face, which he accomplished by 
laying several weeks opposite the foe—an example that was followed 
by the other side ; and thus the two armies continued to take sights at 
each other during the entire winter. At length a truce for three years 
and eight months was agreed upon; but its conditions were not 
attended to. John de Montfort was to have been released from prison, 
according to the agreement; but Philip, by pitiful quibbles, found 
excuses for keeping him in closer custody. At length, the old gentle¬ 
man escaped in the disguise of a pedlar; but he was cruelly hounded 
by his enemies, and with a pack at his back was for some time hunted 
about, until, by dint of the most dogged perseverance, he arrived safely 
in England. Coming to the door of his own house, he set up a faint 
cry of “ Stay-lace, boot-lace, shoe-tie,” in a disguised voice, which brought 
the mistress of the establishment to the window; but she merely shook 
her head, to indicate that nothing was wanted. Upon this the supposed 
pedlar threw off his hat and wig, and being instantly recognised, was 
dragged into the hall, to the surprise of the various servants, until 
the words “ It ’s your master come back,” furnished a clue to the mystery. 
His wife’s joy at meeting her “ old man,” as she affectionately called 
him, was extreme ; but the excitement was too much for the veteran, 
who went bang off, like an exhausted squib, while Lady de Montfort 
fell in an explosion of grief by the side of her husband. 

The fortune of war had been oscillating with the regularity of a 
pendulum between England and France, when the Earl of Derby threw 
himself into the scale with tremendous weight, and turned it completely 
in England’s favour. In the emphatic language of the day, lie was 
“ down upon the French like a thunderbolt.” Edward went off to 
Flanders to treat with the free cities for their allegiance, and, in fact, 
ascertain the price of those friends of Liberty. Louis the Count, though 
deprived of nearly all his revenue, kept up his independence, and re¬ 
fused to pay allegiance or anything else to Edward. The English king 
tried to effect a transfer of the loyalty of the Flemings from Louis, the 
Count of Flanders, to his own son, Edward the Black Prince; and with 
this view he obtained the support of his old friend James von Arta 
veldt, the brewer, whose stout gave him a great ascendancy over the 
actions of the people. He addressed to them a good deal of frothy 


CHAP. IV.] 


I 


EDWARD LANDS IN NORMANDY. ]69 

declamation, and endeavoured to brew the storm of revolution; but it 
ended in very small beer, amid which Artaveldt himself was eventually 
washed away through the impetuosity of the stream he had himself 
set in motion. A popular insurrection broke out, and the brewer 
behaved with great gallantry. He wore a casque on liis head which 
pointed him out as a butt for the malice of his enemies. He was 



Assassination of Artaveldt the Brewer. 


cruelly murdered, and Edward vowed vengeance when he heard that 
the lifeless bier was all that remained of his friend the brewer. 

In 1346, the English king landed on the coast of Normandy, with an 
army containing not only the flower of his own troops, but a regular 
bouquet, in which the English rose was blended with the Welsh leek 
and a sprig of the Irish shilelah. He marched towards Paris, and his 
van had even entered the suburbs of that city; but, without attacking 
the capital, he contented himself with a little arson in the small towns 
in the neighbourhood. His antagonist was not inactive, and succeeded 
in getting the English into a corner, from which escape seemed almost 
impossible. It was necessary to cross the Somme ; but Philip and the 
river were rather too deep for Edward and his soldiers. Having waited 
till the tide went down, they took a desperate plunge, and the foe 
having also resolved on making a splash, the two armies met in the 

































































































































































































170 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


middle of the stream, where they fought with an ardour that was not 
damped by the surrounding element. Edward and his troops found as 
much difficulty in reaching the Bank as if they had made the attempt 
in an omnibus during one of the blockades of Fleet Street. At length 
they succeeded, and after travelling for some distance, they put up in 
the neighbourhood of the village of Cressy. On the 26th of August, 
1346, the English sovereign took an early supper, and went to bed, 
having given instructions for his boots to be brought to his door by 
dawn on the following morning. 

The whole army slept well, 
considering it was the first night 
in a strange place; and, having 
been called by that valuable 
valet, the lark, every one was 
up and down by the hour of 
daybreak. 

Breakfast was scarcely con 
eluded when Edward ordered 
the army to arms, and sent for 
the Herald in the hopes of 
getting the news ; but from this 
quarter he learned nothing. At 
length he took up his Post, and 
chose three leaders, a column 
being assigned to each of them. 

The first was under the com¬ 
mand of his young son, Edward 
the Black Prince, a youth of 
fifteen, who held very high 
rank in the army, having been 
included in every brevet, not¬ 
withstanding the brevity of his 
service. Two experienced captains—the Earls of Warwick and Oxford 
—were employed under him to do the work, so that the boy prince had 
nothing to do but to reap the glory of his position. Reaping laurels 
under such circumstances was a common practice in those days; and the 
vulgar expression “ with a hook” may have originated in allusion to the 
reaping of the harvest created by another’s merit. It must, however, 
be stated in justice to the Black Prince, that he proved himself quite 
equal to the position in which fortune had placed him. If we examine 
his character, we shall find in it many good points, and it may fairly be 
said that the Black Prince was by no means so black as history has 
painted him. The three divisions took up their position on the hill, and 
the archers stood in front, forming a semicircle or bow, from which they 
could more effectually discharge their arrows. The Battle of Cressy is 
perhaps one of the most interesting in English history; and though part 
of it was fought in a tremendous shower of rain, which has caused some 



Edward III. on the morning of the Battle of Cressy. 


















































































CHAP. IV.] 


THE BATTLE OF CRESSY. 


171 


frivolous writer of the period to give it the name of Water Cressy, we 
are not induced by this idle and impotent play upon words to lose our 
respect for one of the greatest exploits of our countrymen. 

Philip slept at Abbeville on the 25tli of August, and rising in a 
terrible ill-humour set out early in the morning to give battle. He 
started off in such a fit of sulkiness that he did not even give the word 
to “ march,” and breaking suddenly into a run, his impatience carried 
him far in advance of his army. By the time he came in sight of the 
foe, he was ever so much ahead of his own troops, and was obliged to 
sit down quietly until they had come nearly up to him. By some mis¬ 
management, the troops at the back started off quicker than those in 
front, who began to hesitate still more as they approached the enemy, 
and thus one part of the army beginning to back while those behind 
pressed forward, a state of confusion which can only be described as a 
dreadful squeege, was the immediate consequence. “ Now then, stupid,” 
resounded from rank to rank, and comrade addressed comrade with the 
words “ Where are you shoving to ? ” The king got hurried head fore¬ 
most almost into the English camp, in spite of the vehement cries of 
“ Keep back ! ” which however were no sooner acted upon than the rear 
ranks were seized with a panic, and the soldiery began tumbling over 
each other like those battalions in tin which in youthful days have fallen 
prostrate beneath the power of the pea-shooter. 

Philip, who had never intended to take the honour of a foremost 
rank, was pushed willy-nilly into the front place, like a gentleman who 
happened to be walking down the Haymarket on an opera night, and 
found himself suddenly engulfed in a stream which washed him off his 
legs, and left him high and dry in a stall to which he had been driven by 
the impetuosity of the torrent. Finding himself in the heat of an engage¬ 
ment in which he had not intended to be so closely engaged, his French 
majesty called to the Genoese crossbow-men to advance, but they pleaded 
sudden indisposition and fatigue, when Philip’s brother deeply offended 
them by exclaiming—“ See what we get by employing such scoundrels, 
who fail us in our need.” The Genoese were rather nettled—that is 
to say, somewhat stung—by this remark, and made a rush which was 
worth no more than a rush, for they were really worn out with their 
morning’s walk, and felt fitter to be in bed than in battle. Though 
their arms and legs were tired, they still had the fall use of their lungs, 
and began to shout out with tremendous vehemence, in the hope of 
frightening the English. This horrible hooting had no effect, and a 
Scotch veteran, by happily exclaiming “ Hoot awa,” turned the laugh in 
favour of the English. Upon this, the Genoese gave another fearful 
yell, when one of Edward’s soldiers inquired whether the crossbow-men 
wanted to frighten away the birds, and gave them the nick-name of the 
heavy scarecrows. They advanced a step, when the English archers 
sent forth a volley of arrows, which fell like a snow-storm upon the 
Genoese, who converting their shields into umbrellas, tried to take 
shelter under them. Philip was so disgusted with this pusillanimous 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


172 


conduct, that he cried out in a fury, “ Kill me these scoundrels, for they 
stop our way without doing any good;” and the poor Genoese caught it 
severely from both sides. 

During the battle Edward sat on the tip-top of a windmill, situated 
on the summit of a lofty hill, where, completely out of harm’s way, he 



Edward III. at the Battle of Cressy. 


could watch the progress of the action. While in this elevated position, 
he was asked by a messenger to send a reinforcement to the Prince of 
Wales, who was performing prodigies of valour. “ I’m glad to hear 
it,” said the affectionate father; “ but,” he added, “ return to those who 
sent you, and tell them they shall have no help from me. Let the 
boy win his spurs,” continued the old humbug, who was too selfish to 
put himself out of the way to assist his son, and would rather have let 
him perish, than make any sacrifice to aid him in his arduous struggles. 

When these unaided exertions came to a triumphant issue, the 
father endeavoured to gain a reflected glory from the brilliance of his 
son’s achievements. It is, however, due to the reputation of the latter 
to assert that the glory was all his own; for his selfish father had taken 










































































































































CHAP. IV.J 


DEATH OF THE KING OF BOHEMIA. 


173 


care of himself, while the son fought the battle alone, and won it with¬ 
out any assistance that it was in the power of his parent to have 
afforded him. 

Poor Philip fought desperately as long as he could, till John of 
Hainault, who had several times advised him to “ go home and go to bed, 
for it was of no use,” went up to the horse of the French king, seized 
the bridle, and quietly led him. off in the direction of the nearest green¬ 
yard. Seeing it was a bad job, Philip requested to be taken to the 
castle of La Broye, but the gates were shut, and the chatelain, looking 
out of window, inquired who was knocking him up at such an unreasonable 
hour. “ Me,” cried Philip, in the grammar of the period ; but “ who ’s 
me ? ” was the only response of the governor. “ Why, don’t you know 
me ? I’m Philip, the fortune of France.” “ Pretty fortune, indeed ! ” 
muttered the chatelain, as he came down stairs, keys and candle in 
hand, to admit his unfortunate sovereign. The king’s suite had 
dwindled down to five barons,* who turned in anywhere for the night, 
on sofas and chairs, while Philip took the spare bed usually kept for 
visitors. 

Thus ended the memorable Battle of Cressy, from our account of 
which we must not omit the incident of the King of Bohemia, who, old 
and blind, was perverse enough to tie the bridle of his horse to those of 
two knights, and with them he plunged into the midst of the battle. 
Considering that he could not have seen his way, there is something 
very rash, though perhaps very valiant, in this behaviour. Nor should we 
in our admiration of the bravery of the King of Bohemia, forget to sym¬ 
pathise with the two knights, upon whom he must have been a precious 
drag, by tying his horse’s bridle to theirs, and making them no doubt 
the victims of a most unfortunate attachment. The King of Bohemia 
of course fell, for the union he had formed was anything but strength, 
and the Prince of Wales picking up his crest—a plume of ostrich 
feathers—adopted it for his own, with the celebrated motto of Ich Dien.\ 
The literal meaning of this motto is simply “ I serve,” but it has been 
very naturally suggested that “I am served out ” would have been a 
more appropriate translation of the phrase, as long as it appertained to 
the unfortunate King of Bohemia. Rapin, the French historian, who is 
naturally anxious to make the best case he can for his countrymen, 
attributes their defeat at Cressy to the use of gunpowder by the English, 
who introduced, for the first time in war, a small magazine of this 
startling novelty. Such a magasin des nouveautes of course would have 
taken the French by surprise, and would easily have accounted for any 
little deficiency of valour they might have exhibited. When the battle 
was over, Edward sneaked out of his windmill, where he professed to 
have been “ overlooking the reserve,” and joined his successful son, 
whom he warmly congratulated on his position. 

* Froissart. 

+ Doubts have been lately cast on this old story. See the Cabinet Portrait Gallery 
of British Worthies, vol. i., page 81. 


174 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


The night after the battle was of course a gala night with the English, 
who lighted fires, torches, and candles, including probably “fifty thou¬ 
sand additional lamps,” in celebration of the victory. So excellent, 
however, were the regulations on the occasion, that w T e have not heard 
of a single instance of disturbance or accident. The day after the battle 
was disgraced by a series of attacks on some French unfortunates, who 
not knowing of the defeat of their king, were coming to his assistance. 
It happened that, as if to make the English quite at home, a regular 
English fog set in, and some French militia, not being able to see their 
way very clearly, mistook a reconnoitreing party of the enemy for their 
own countrymen. The French hastened to join their supposed comrades, 
but soon found out their mistake from the cruel treatment they ex¬ 
perienced. Other stragglers, who had missed their way in the mist, 
were also savagely attacked, and when Edward heard the facts, he sent 
out Lords Cobham and Stafford, with three heralds, to recognise the 
arms, and two secretaries to write down the names of those that had 
fallen. The party returned in the evening, with a list of eleven princes, 
eighty bannerets, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand com¬ 
moners. We can only say that the herald of those days could not have 
been such a very slow affair as the Herald of these, and the secretaries 
must have written not merely a running but a galloping hand to have 
in so few hours deciphered the arms, and made a list of the names of 
such an enormous number of individuals. 

Having remained over Sunday at Cressy, Edward set out on Monday 
morning for Calais, with the intention of besieging it. While he was 
occupied abroad, his enemy, little David Bruce, at the instigation erf 
Philip, attempted to disturb England. After a brief campaign, in which 
the Scotch king was joined by the Earls of Monteith and Fife, David 
Bruce was placed in custody. Monteith lost his head for showing his 
teeth, and Fife would have had a stop put to him, but for his relation¬ 
ship to the Royal Family, his mother having been niece to the first 
Edward. 

Calais was kept in a state M blockade, for the English king had 
resolved upon hemming in and starving out the inhabitants. John de 
Vienne, who was the governor, finding provisions getting low, turned 
what he called the “ useless mouths ” out of the place, and among these 
“ useless mouths” were a number of women, who must have been rare 
specimens of their sex to have kept their mouths in a state of useless¬ 
ness. The brutal policy of John de Vienne was to continue weeding 
the population as long as he could by turning out the old and helpless, 
the women and the children. Seventeen hundred victims were thrust 
from the town and driven towards the English lines by the Governor 
of Calais, who was reckless of the lives of the citizens so long as the 
sacrifice enabled him to hold out and gain a character for bravery. 

It is easy for a military commander to win a reputation for extreme 
heroism if he is utterly regardless of the expense, and chooses to pay 
for it in the blood of those under his control; but it is the duty of the 







V 
































































































































































CHAP. IV.] « SURRENDER OF CALAIS. 175 

historian to audit the accounts and justly strike the balance In looking 
into the case of John de Vienne we adjudge him guilty of fraudulent 
bankruptcy in his reputation, for he sought to establish himself in the 
good books of public opinion by trading on the lives of the citizens of 
Calais, which were his only capital. If he were now before us, we 
should assume the part of a commissioner, and should say to him, “ Go, 
Sir. We cannot grant you your protection from the heavy responsibi¬ 
lities you incurred when you wasted human life w r hich you were bound 
to preserve as far as you were able. You have violated a s&cred trust; 
and we must therefore adjourn your further examination sine die , for it 
is quite impossible to grant you your certificate.” 

As long as John de Vienne could find anything to eat, and could 
have his table tolerably well provided, he held out; but when starvation 
threatened himself as well as the citizens, he asked permission to 
capitulate. Edward, annoyed by the obstinacy of the resistance, refused 
to come to any terms short of an unconditional surrender, but he at 
length consented to spare the town on condition of six burgesses coming 
forth naked in their shirts, with halters round their necks, and without 
anything on their legs, as a proof of their humiliation being utterly 
inexpressible. When John de Vienne was apprised of this resolution, 
he called a meeting in the market-place, and stated the hard condition 
which Edward had imposed, but the governor had not the heroism to 
propose to make one of the party required for the sacrifice. He was 
exceedingly eloquent in urging others to come forward, and was loud in 
his protestations that such an “ eligible opportunity,” such an “opening 
for spirited young men ” would never occur again; but the citizens 
turned a deaf ear to all his arguments. No one seemed inclined 
to set a noble example, but all the inhabitants gave way to a piteous 
fit of howling, until Eustace de St. Pierre, a rich burgess, drying 
his eyes and mopping up his emotion with the cuff of his coat, offered 
himself as the first victim. Five others followed his example, and 
the six heroes, taking off their trowsers, prepared to throw themselves 
into the breach, and slipping off their slippers, went barefooted into 
the presence of the conqueror. He eyed the miserable objects with 
malicious pleasure, and according to Froissart, insulted the unhappy 
burgesses by a series of grimaces, like those with which the clown 
accompanies the ironical inquiry of “How are you?” which he always 
addresses to his intended victim in a pantomime. The wretched state 
of the burgesses shivering in their shirts—but not shaking in their 
shoes, for they were bare-footed—had a softening influence on all but 
Edward, who with a clownish yell of “ I Ve got you,” desired that the 
headsman might be sent for immediately. The queen threw herself 
on her knees, and representing that she had never asked a favour of 
Edward in her life, entreated him to spare the trembling citizens 
“ Look at them!” exclaimed her Majesty, as she dragged one forward 
and turned him round and round to show what a miserable object he 
was. “ Look at them ! and observe how piteously they implore mercy; 


176 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK in 


for though their tongues do not speak, their teeth are constantly 
chattering.” Edward looked at his wife, and then at the citizens. “ J 

wish,” said he to the former, “ that you had been-somewhere else , 

but*take the miserable beggars and do what you can with them.” 
Philippa instantly took the coil of rope from the necks that were so 
nearly on the point of “ shuffling off the mortal coil,” and told them 
to go and get rigged out in a suit of clothes each, which made the 
oldest of them observe that “ the rigger of the queen was much less 
formidable than the rigour of the king, with which they had been so 
lately threatened.” 

The imbecility to which fear had brought their minds is fearfully 
shadowed forth in this miserable piece of attempted pleasantry, and it 
was perhaps fortunate that Edward did not overhear a pun, the atrocity 
of which he might have been justified in never pardoning. The six 
citizens having received their dressing, in a more agreeable shape than 
they had expected, and having sat down to an excellent dinner, provided 
at the queen’s expense, were dismissed with a present of six nobles 
each, that they might not be without money in their pockets. As they 
partook of the meal prepared for them, the wag of the party, whose 
vapid jokes had already endangered the lives of himself and his com¬ 
panions, ventured to observe that he should look upon the ordinary as 
one of the most extraordinary events in his life; but as none of the 
king’s servants were at hand to overhear the miserable jeu de mot, it 
was not followed by the fatal consequences we might otherwise have 
been compelled to chronicle. 

On the 3rd of August, 1347, Edward and his queen made their 
triumphant entry into Calais, which was transformed into an English 
colony; and as the residents at that early period were debtors to the 
generosity of the sovereign, the place has become a favourite resort for 
debtors even to the present moment. 

Edward having returned to England began to try the squeezability of 
his parliament, and got up various pretexts for demanding money. He 
pretended to ask advice about carrying on the war with France, but the 
parliament suspecting his intention declined giving any answer to his 
message. He next had recourse to intimidation, by spreading a report 
that the French contemplated invasion ; and though it was little better 
than a cry of “ Old Bogy,” it had the desired effect. There is no doubt 
that Edward was guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, for he 
and Philip had agreed between themselves for a truce, and yet each 
taxed his subjects under the pretence that war might be imminent. 

About the year 1344, according to some, but in the year 1350, on 
the authority of Stowe, the celebrated Order of the Garter was founded. 
If we may put faith in an old fable, it originated in the Countess of 
Salisbury having danced her stockings down at a court ball; when tlie 
king seeing her garter dangling at her heelSj took hold of it and gave it to 
her, exclaiming, Honi soit qui mat y pense, which was a cut at some 
females who pretended to be shocked at the incident. Their smothered 



CHAP. IV.] 


PHILIP DIES-JOHN CONTINUES THE TRUCE. 


177 


exclamations of “ Well, I’m sure ! ” “ Upon my word ! ” and “ Well, 
really I never ! Did you ever ! ” were thus playfully rebuked by Edward 



the Third, who afterwards made the words we have quoted the motto 
of the Order. We need scarcely tell our readers in this enlightened 
age, that Honi soit qui mol y pense, is equivalent to saying that those 
who see harm in an innocent act, derive from themselves all the evil 
that presents itself. 

Edward’s old enemy Philip of France was now dead, but his son and 
successor, John, continued the truce, or renewed the accommodation 
bill, which was entered into for the purpose of stopping proceedings on 
either side. In state affairs as in pecuniary matters, these temporary 
arrangements are seldom beneficial, for they cause a frightful accumula¬ 
tion of interest, which must some time or other be paid off or wiped out 
at a fearful sacrifice 

N 








































178 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


' BOOK IIr 


The continental successes of the English king were marred by the 
trouble that Scotland gave to him, and he was often heard to say that 
“ though he could make the French poodle—by whom he meant the 
King of France—do as he pleased, he hated the constant barking at his 
heels of the Scotch terrier.” He therefore determined on attempting 
to buy the country out and out. So, going over to Roxburgh, he asked 
Baliol point-blank what he would take for the whole concern, exactly 
as it stood, including the throne, the title-deeds of the kingdom, and 
the crown and sceptre. “ Let me see ; what has it cost me ? ” said 
Baliol, evidently contemplating a bargain; but Edward interrupting 
him with “ A precious deal more than it is worth,” somewhat modified 
the figure that was on the tip of the tongue of the Scotch sovereign. 
“ Will fifty thousand marks be too much?” observed the vendor, with 
an anxious look; but Edward's rapid “Oh, good morning,” instantly 
told the wary Scot the shrewdness of his customer. “ Stop, stop,” said 
Baliol, “ I like to do business when I can. What will you give ? for 
I’m really tired of the thing, and would be glad to accept any reasonable 
offer ? ” Edward resumed his seat, made a few calculations on a scrap 
of vellum with a pocket stile, and then jumping up, exclaimed, “ I ’ll 
tell you what I ’ll do with you. I ’ll give you five thousand marks down, 
and an annuity of two thousand pounds per annum.” 

The bargain was struck; with the title-deeds laden, Edward 
joyfully flew to his own country, and he had scarcely turned his back 
when “ Adieu,” said Baliol, “you are not the first humbug who, coming 
to cheat, have got cheated yourself.” The fact was, that the Scotch¬ 
man, with characteristic cunning, got the best of the bargain; for the 
crown had been fearfully ill-used, the sceptre had got all the glitter worn 
off by the hard rubs it had endured, and the throne would cost more to 
keep in substantial repair, than twice its value. 

Edward having bought up the country, began to exercise the right of 
ownership, by setting fire to little bits of it. He marched through the 
Lothians, where he met with loathing on every side, and set Haddington 
as well as Edinburgh in flames, which caused Scotland to be propheti 
cally called the Land of Burns by a sage of the period. 

While the king was thus engaged at home, his son Edward, the 
Black Prince, so called from the colour of his armour, which he had 
blackleaded, to save the trouble of keeping it always bright, was occupied 
in France, where he fought and won the famous battle of Poictiers. 
The truce had, with the customary faithlessness of royalty in those 
days, been broken. Young Edward, having a small force, made a most 
earnest appeal to his army, and said something very insinuating about 
“ his sinewy English bowmen.” 

Before the commencement of the battle, a diplomatist of the name of 
Talleyrand, who seems to have been worthy of his celebrated modern 
successor, rode from camp to camp trying to arrange the affair, and 
making himself very influential with both parties. John was, however, 
so confident in the superiority of his numbers, that he declined a com- 


CHAP. IV.] 


THE BATTLE OF POICTIERS. 


179 


promise except on the most humiliating terms to the Black Prince, who 
looked blacker than ever when the degrading proposition was made 
to him. 

On the 19th of September, 1356, the battle began with a duet 
played by two trumpets—one on each side—but this did not last long, 
for neither party desired to listen to overtures. The French com 
menced the attack, but they came to the point a little too soon, for they 
actually ran upon the arrows of the English bowmen. The Constable 
of France tried to inspire courage into the troops on his side by roaring 
out “ Mountjoy ! St Denis!” but a stalwart Briton, telling him to 
hold his noise, felled him to the ground. A strong body of reserve, 
who carried their reserve to downright timidity, fled without striking a 
blow. They had scarcely drawn their swords, and received the word of 
command to “ cut away,” when they did literally cut away, and having 
cut refused to come again. John of France flourished his battle-axe 
with ferocious courage; but at last he received two tremendous blows in 
the face which brought him to the ground. His son Philip, a lad of 
sixteen, fought by his side, encouraging him with cries of “ Give it ’em, 
father! ” which aroused the almost exhausted John, and caused him to 
recover his legs. Every kind of verbal insults was offered to him by 
the enemy, and particularly by the Gascons, who indulged in a great 
deal of their usual gasconade. “ Stand and surrender! ” cried a voice ; 
to which John replied, “ If I could stand, I would not surrender, but I 
suppose I must fall into your hands.” With this he tottered into a 
circle of English knights, by whom he was nearly torn to pieces in 
the scramble that arose for the royal captive. Some among the crowd 
of his victors endeavoured to induce his Majesty to place himself under 
their charge, and one or two began to talk to him in bad French, when 
Sir Denis, a real Frenchman, who had been dismissed from the service 
of his own country and entered that of England, addressed the monarch 
politely in his native tongue. John was in the act of offering up his 
glove to this gentleman as a token of surrender, when the royal gauntlet 
was torn to pieces by the surrounding knights, who all wanted to have a 
Anger in it. Every one was eager to claim the French monarch, 
who seemed on the point of being torn to pieces like a hare by a pack 
of ill-bred hounds. “ I took him,” exclaimed fifty voices at once, 
when the Earl of Warwick, rushing into the front, thundered forth in 
a stentorian voice, “ Can’t you leave the man alone ! ” and drawing 
John’s arm within his own, led off the conquered king to the camp of 
Edward. Warwick took little Philip by the hand, and presented father 
and son to the Black Prince, who received them with much courtesy.* 
He invited them both to supper, waited on the French king at table, 
and soothed his grief with probably such kind expressions as “ Poor old 
chap ! ” “ Never mind, old fellow ! ” and other words of respectful sym¬ 
pathy. The Black Prince made them his companions to London, which 
they entered in the character of his prisoners, on the 24th of April, 

* Froissart. 

N 2 


180 


COMIC HTSTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


1357. The pageant was very magnificent the citizens hanging out 
their plate to do honour to the occasion; and the windows were filled 
with spoons, just as they are when a modem Lord Mayor's show is to 
be seen within the city. Edward had now a couple of kings in custody; 



Edward, the Black Prince, conducting his Prisoner 


but in November, 1357, one of them, David Bruce, was released, upon 
drawing a bill for 100,000 marks on his Scotch subjects. There can 































































































































































CHAP. IV.] 


DEATH OF JOHN OF FRANCE. 


181 


be no doubt that the latter were regularly sold by their weak-minded 
monarch, who had become the mere creature of the English sovereign 
John remained in captivity in London, while Edward carried the war 
into France ; but having got nearly as far as Paris, he was caught in a 
shower, which completely wet him down, and diluted all the spirit he 
had, up to that point, exhibited.* The wind was terrific; but it was 
not one of those ill winds that blow nobody good, for the blow it inflicted 
on the courage of Edward made good for those he came to fight against. 
The French justly hailed the rain as a welcome visitor, for it completely 
softened Edward by regularly soaking him. On the 8th of May, 13G0, 
peace was concluded, and John was set at large on condition of the 
payment of three million crowns of gold, which was rather a heavy sum 
for getting one crown restored to him. Some hostages were given for 
the fulfilment of the bargain ; but poor John found he had undertaken 
more than he could perform, and though he did not exactly stop 
payment, it was because he had never commenced that operation. He 
was exceedingly particular in money matters, and it annoyed him not 
to be able to fulfil his pecuniary arrangements. Some of his bail 
having bolted, he could bear the degradation no longer, and he volun¬ 
tarily went over to London, where he put himself in prison, as a 
defaulter, though others say it was a love-affair in England, rather 
than his honesty as a debtor, which brought him up to town. The 
royal insolvent did not long survive, for he died in the month of April, 
1364, at the Palace of the Savoy; and it was tauntingly said of him by 
a contemporary buffoon, that the debt of nature was the only debt he 
had ever paid. 

The Black Prince, who had been created Duke of Aquitaine, governed 
for his father in the South of France, but was induced to espouse the 
cause of one Pedro, surnamed the Cruel, who, for his ferocious conduct,, 
had been driven from the throne of Castile. Bertrand du Gueselin, a 
famous knight in his day, and Don Enrique, the illegitimate brother of 
the tyrant, had expelled him from his dominions, when the Black 
Prince, tempted by offers of an enormous salary, undertook to restore 
Pedro to his position. Edward fought and conquered, but could not 
get paid for his services ; and, as he had undertaken the job by contract, 
employing an army of mercenaries at his own risk, he was harassed to 
death by demands for which he had made himself liable. Captains 
were continually calling to know when he intended to settle that little 
matter, until he got tired of answering that it was not quite convenient 
just now; and he that had never turned his back upon an enemy, ran 
away as hard as he could from the importunity of his creditors. Pedro, 
abandoned by his chief supporter, agreed to a conference with his half 
brother Enrique; but cruelty seems to have been a family failing, for the 
couple had scarcely met when they fell upon each other with the fury of 
wild beasts, and Pedro the Cruel was stabbed by Enrique the Crueller, 
w r ho threw himself at once upon the throne.f 

* Froissart, Knyght, Rymer, and Company. + Froissart.—Mariana. 


182 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


Charles of France now thought that the harassed mind and declining 
health of the Black Prince afforded an eligible opportunity of attacking 
him. His Royal Highness resisted as well as he could; but he was so 
exceedingly indisposed that he was carriecf about on a litter from post to 
post, as if he had been compelled to rest at the comer of every street 
through sheer exhaustion. He marched, or rather was jolted, towards 
Limages, the capital of the Limousin, which he stormed in two places at 
once; and at the sight of the pair of breaches he had made, the women 
fled in inexpressible terror and confusion. His conduct to these poor 
defenceless creatures was merciless in the extreme ; and this one incident 
in the life of the Black Prince is sufficient to give to his name all the 
blackness that is attached to it. Some allowance may, however, be 
perhaps made for the state of his health, which now took him to 
England to recruit—not in a military but in a physical sense—but it 
was too late, for he died at Canterbury, on the 8th of January, 1876, to 
the great regret of his father, who only kept the respect of the people 
through his son’s popularity. 

Edward III. had been for some time leading a very disreputable life, 
and had been captivated by one Alice Perrers, to whom he had given the 
jewels of the late queen, and who had the effrontery to wear them when 
abroad in the public thoroughfares. Among other freaks of his dotage 
was a tournament which he gave in Smithfield—the origin, no doubt, of 
the once famous Bartholomew Fair—where Alice Perrers figured in a 
triumphal chariot, as the Lady of the Sun, the king himself appearing 
in the character of the Sun, though it was the general remark that, as 
the couple sat side by side, the Sun looked old enough to be the father. 

It was towards the close of this reign that Wycliffe, the celebrated 
precursor of Huss, Luther, and Calvin, as well as the curser of popeiy, 
began preaching against the abuses of the Catholic clergy. His cause 
was espoused by the Duke of Lancaster, who had been in power since 
the death of the Black Prince, and who is said to have taken Wycliffe’s 
part so ardently, as to have threatened to drag the Bishop of London 
by the hair of his head out of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Considering that 
the priest was all shaven and shorn, it would have been difficult for 
Lancaster to have carried out his threat by tugging out the bishop in 
the manner specified. It is a curious fact that this alleged attack on 
one of the heads of the church was soon followed by a general burden 
on the national poll, in the shape of a poll-tax, which was imposed to 
provide for the renewal of the war, as the truce in existence was on the 
point of expiring. 

Edward had now become old and miserable ; for having done nothing 
to gain the affection of others, he was abandoned at the close of his life, 
by even the members of his own family. One or two sycophants clung 
to him, in the hope of getting something; but his children had all 
separate interests of their own, for the cold and selfish conduct of their 
parent had driven them quite away from him. He endeavoured to 
give decency to the close of his existence, by a general amnesty for all 


CHAP. IV.1 


DEATH OF EDWARD III. 


183 


minor offences; but it was now too late to gain liim friends, and the 
wretched old man was left alone with Alice Perrers. He died in her 
arms at his villa at Sheen, near Richmond, on the 21st of June, 1377, 
and she took advantage of being by his side at his death, to rob him of 
a valuable ring, which she took from his finger in his last moments, 
when he was too weak to resist the robbery. Were the shade of 
Edward III. to present itself before us for a testimonial, w r e should 
advise the spectre, for its respectability’s sake, not to ask us for a 
character. 

Much good was done in the reign we have been describing; but this 
is only another illustration of the well-known truth that the prosperity 
of a country does not always depend on the virtues of the sovereign 
Perhaps the most valuable measure passed by Edward was an act 
limiting to three principal heads the cases of high treason, of which a 
hundred heads, all filled with teeth, might until then have been con¬ 
sidered symbolical. This wholesome statute had at least the effect of 
changing a Hydra into a Cerberus The leash of crimes that this 
Cerberus was empowered to hunt down were, conspiring the death of the 
king, levying war against him, or adhering to his enemies. A curious 
question arose some time afterwards under the last of these three 
divisions, when a loyal subject was nearly being condemned for adhering 
to the king’s enemies, though it appeared he had adhered only in the 
sense of sticking to them, with a view to punish them. 

The conduct of Edward III. to David Bruce, his brother-in-law, was 
unjust in the extreme; and though the Black Prince made his way by 
his own talents, he does not appear to have owed his advancement to 
any assistance that his father ever afforded him. Some useful altera¬ 
tions were made in the law, and the power of the Commons advanced ; 
but the taxes were fearfully increased, as if the liberality of the people 
was expected as an equivalent for the liberality of the Government. 
The money collected was not altogether wasted in war, for some of it 
went in the building of Windsor Castle, of which William of Wickham 
was the architect. The first turnpike ever known in England, was 
started also under Edward III., between St. Giles’s and Temple Bar, 
where to this day the successor of the ancient pikeman rushes forth to 
levy a toll on the carts that enter the city. On the same principle, 
that out of evil good often comes, Edward III. may be regarded as a 
benefactor to his subjects 


184 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


IBOOK Ilf 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH 

RICHARD THE SECOND, SURNAMED OF BORDEAUX. 

f little and good were always identical, 
Richard II. would have been a yery 
good king, for he was a little hoy of 
eleven years of age when the crane of 
circumstances hoisted him on to the 
throne of his grandfather. Young Rich¬ 
ard was the only surviving son of 
Edward the Black Prince, and out of 
compliment to the juvenile monarch, 
his coronation in Westminster Abbey 
was made as gaudy as possible. No 
expense was spared in dresses and deco¬ 
rations ; but the ceremony not being 
over till it was high time all children 
should be in bed and asleep, the boy 
king was completely exhausted before 
the spectacle was half over. Stimulants 
were administered to keep the child 
up; but when the heavy crown was 
placed on his brow, the diadem completely overbalanced a head already 
oscillating from side to side with excessive drowsiness. His attendants 
tumbled him into a litter, and hurried him to a private room, where, 
by dint of the most scarifying restoratives held to his nose, he so 
far recovered as to be enabled to create four earls and nine knights, 
partake of a tremendous supper, dance at a ball, and listen to a little 
minstrelsy.* 

It was at the coronation of Richard II. that we first find mention in 
history of a champion rushing into Westminster Hall, throwing his 
gauntlet on the ground, and offering to fight any number—one down 
and another come on—who may dispute the title of the sovereign. 
The gallantry of the challenge is not very considerable, for it is a well- 
understood thing beforehand that the police will keep all suspicious 
characters out of the Hall, and the only difficulty required is in backing 
out of the Hall on horseback; as, if a claimant to the throne should 
actually appear, the champion would no doubt back cleverly out of his 
challenge. Even this trifling merit must, however, be assigned to the 

* We get these facts from Walsingham, who gives an elaborate account of the coronation. 
Walsingham says, they waltzed till all was blue, which means, until the ccerulean dawn 
Dcgan to make its appearance. 
































































CHAP. V.J 


TRUCE WITH FRANCE EXPIRES. 


185 


horse, who is generally a highly-trained palfrey from the neighbouring 
amphitheatre, and is let out, trappings and all included, to the 
Champion of England for the performance in which his services are 
required. 



Though Richard was not too young for the position of king, it was 
net to be supposed that a boy of his age could be of any use whatever, 
and twelve permanent councillors were therefore appointed, to do the 
work of government. It was expected that the Duke of Lancaster, alias 
John of Gaunt, would have been appointed regent, but not one of the 
king’s uncles was named, and John, looking gaunter * than ever, with¬ 
drew in stately dudgeon to his Castle of Kenilworth. 

The truce with France having expired, without renewal, some attacks 
were made on the English coast, and advantage was taken of the 
circumstance to ask the Parliament for a liberal supply. Every appeal 
to the patriotism of the people was in those days nothing more than an 
attack upon their pockets ; and it is not improbable that, by an under¬ 
standing among the various kings of Europe, one of them should be 
threatened with attack if he required a pretext for obtaining a subsidy 
from his subjects. 

Notwithstanding the money taken from the public purse for the 
national defence, the work was so utterly neglected by the Government, 
that John Philpot, a shipowner and merchant of London, equipped a 
small fleet of his own, with which he captured several of the enemy’s 

* John of Gaunt was not so called from his gaunt stature, as some suppose, hut from 
Ghent, or Gand, (then called Gaunt) where the gent, was born. 

















































186 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK III 

vessels. The authorities feeling the act to be a reflection on their own 
shameful dereliction of duty, censured Philpot for his interference; but 
the worthy alderman, by replying—“ Why did you leave it to me to do, 
when you ought to have done it yourselves ? ” effectually silenced all 
* remonstrance. 

Young Richard, or those who acted for him, continued to make ducks 
and drakes of the money of the English, which was being constantly 
wasted in wanton warfare. The setting up of a duke here, or the taking 
down of a king there, though the English felt no interest whatever in 
either the duke or the king, became a pretext for levying a tax on the 
people. In order that none should escape, so much per head was 
imposed on every one from the highest to the lowest. The tax varied 
with the rank of the person ; and while a duke or archbishop was 
assessed at six thirteen four, (£6 13s. id.) a lawyer was mockingly mulcted 
of six and eightpence. Such was the unpopularity of the poll-tax, that 
a regular pollish revolution speedily broke out, which was fomented by 
the exactions of some mercenary speculators to whom the tax had been 
farmed out by the Government. Commissioners were sent into the 
disturbed districts to enforce payment, and one Thomas de Bampton, 
who sat at Brentwood in Essex, with two serjeants-at-arms, was glad 
to take to his legs, to escape the violence of the populace, who sent 
him flying all the way to London, where he rushed with his two 
attendants into the Common Pleas, and asked for justice. Sir Robert 
Belknape, the chief, was sitting at Nisi Prius, when Bampton begged 
permission to move the Court as far as Essex. The judge followed 
by clerks, jurors, and ushers, consenting to the motion, went off to 
Brentwood, where they had no sooner arrived, than poor Belknape was 
seized by the nape of the neck and forced to flee, while the clerks and 
jurors were much more cruelly dealt with. 

Leaders were all that the people wanted, when a notorious priest who 
got the name of Jack Straw—from his being a man of that material— 
put himself at the head of the discontents. The throwing up a straw 
will often tell which way the wind blows, and the elevation of Jack 
certainly indicated an approaching hurricane. During the excitement, 
one of the tax-gatherers called upon one Walter the Tyler, of Dartford, 
in Kent, to demand fourpence, due as Miss Walter’s poll-tax. Mrs. 
Walter, with the vanity of her sex, wishing to make herself out younger 
than she really was, declared that the girl was not of the age liable by 
law to the imposition. The collector made a very rude remark on that 
very tender point, the age of the elder lady, when she screamed out to 
her husband, who was tiling a house in the neighbourhood, to come and 
“ punish the impertinent puppy.” Walter, who had still his trowel in 
his hand, replied by crying out “ Wait till I get at you; ” and the tax- 
gatherer insolently calling out “ What’s that what you say, Wat. ? ” so 
irritated Walter, that he at once emptied a hod of mortar on to the head 
of the collector. The functionary was, of course, dreadfully mortar-fied 
at this incident, but the trowelling he got with the trowel completely 


CHAP V.l 


RIOTERS ENTER THE TOWER. 


187 


finished him. Everybody applauded what Wat. had done, and he was 
soon appointed captain of the rebels. They released from prison a 
methodist parson, named John Ball, or Bawl, whom they called their 
chaplain. A nucleus having been formed, the mob increased with the 
rapidity of a snow-ball, picking up the scum of the earth at every turn, 
until it arrived at an alarming magnitude. The Tyler first visited 
Canterbury, where he played some practical jokes upon the monks, and 
then came to Blackheath, where, finding the young king’s mother—the 
widow of the Black Prince—he gave the old lady a kiss, and in this 
operation nearly every rebel followed his leader. Such were the 
liberties taken by the mob in their zeal on behalf of liberty, which they 
often affect to pursue by means of the vilest tyranny, cruelty, cowardice, 
and oppression. The insurgents made for London, when Walworth, the 
mayor, endeavoured to oppose their entrance ; but his efforts were vain, 
and several parts of the city were burnt and plundered. The Temple 
was destroyed by fire, and the lawyers running about in their black 
gowns amid the flames suggested a very obvious comparison. Newgate 
and the Fleet prisons w r ere broken into, when all the scamps from 
both places at once assumed the character of patriots, and joined the 
cause of the people. 

It is astonishing how easily a scamp who is unfit for any honest occu¬ 
pation can at once become a friend of the masses. The prisons might 
at any time contribute a fresh supply, when the stock of lovers of liberty 
on hand may seem to be diminishing. Kapine and murder were 
pursued with impunity for some time, the government leaving matters 
to take their chance ; until a formal demand having been made by the 
mob for the heads of the Chancellor and Treasurer, it was thought high 
time to effect a compromise. A proclamation w r as issued announcing 
the king's intention to be at Mile End by a certain hour, and the 
people were politely requested to meet him there. On his reaching the 
spot where he intended to talk things over with his subjects, he found 
sixty thousand of them assembled; and as they all began talking at 
once, a little confusion arose, until the appointment of a regular spokes¬ 
man. At length the demands of sixty thousand tongues were reduced 
to four heads, and to these the king agreed veiy graciously. The 
dispute might have ended mildly at Mile End, but for the violent pro¬ 
ceedings of those w T ho kept away from the meeting These got into 
the Tower directly Richard s back was turned, and the least of their 
offences was the rudeness they manifested towards the widow of the 
Black Prince, who had either dropt in to tea with the Archbishop and 
Chancellor, or w r as permanently residing there. This lady had got the 
name of the Fair Maid of Kent, a title that had many local variations, 
according to the part of the county in winch she was spoken of. Some¬ 
times they called her the Dartford Daisy, sometimes the Canterbury 
Belle, sometimes the Greenwich Geranium, sometimes the Woolwich 
Wallflower, and occasionally, even, the Herne Bay Hollyoak. 

The rioters finding her in the Tower, treated the Fair Maid of Kent 


188 


COMIC HISTORY Of’ ENGLAND. 


rDOOK III; 


with excessive rudeness, comparing her lips to Kentish cherries, and 
making them the subject of the well-known game which is played by 
what is termed bobbing at the fruit specified. She was in fact nearly 
smothered in the Tower, with the kisses of the malcontents. Her ladies 
were of course dreadfully shocked, and their screams of “ Mi! ” at the 
treatment of their mistress, were truly terrible. When remonstrated 
with on the liberty they were taking, they declared liberty to be the 
sacred object they were bent on furthering. The Fair Maid of Kent 
was at length dragged away by her attendants, who concealed her in 
a house called the royal wardrobe, or perhaps put her into a clothes- 
cupboard, to keep her out of the way of the rioters. 

The Mile End charter had been very nicely written out by order of 
the king, but Wat Tyler and his followers refused to have anything to 
do with it Bichard tried another charter with more concessions, but 
this had no effect; and at length he drew up a third, which went still 
further than the two first; for the king, or those who advised him, cared 
not how much was promised to answer a temporary purpose, as there 
was never any difficulty in breaking a pledge that might be found incon¬ 
venient. Whether or no Wat suspected the worthlessness of charters, 
which might be sworn to one day and treated as waste paper the next, 
he refused to be satisfied with either of the documents offered to his 
approval. Finding written communications utterly useless, Bichard 
rode into town with the intention of seeing what could be done by means 
of a personal interview. 

On reaching Smithfield he met Wat Tyler, and drew up opposite the • 
gate of St. Bartholomews Hospital, which was in those days an Abbey. 
The incident which then happened has been variously described by different 
pens; but unless we had at our command some of the Smithfield pens 
that happened to be present at the time, we could not vouch for the 
accuracy of any particular statement Some say that Tyler came up in 
a bullying attitude, and flourished a dagger ; others allege that he seized 
the king’s bridle, as if he would take out of the royal hands the reins 
of power: a few hint that Wat was intoxicated, either with brief autho 
rity or something equally short; but all agree that he received his 
quietus at the hands of one of his Majesty’s attendants. 

The merit, or responsibility of the death of Wat Tyler, has usually 
been assigned to Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, who is said to 
have killed the rebel with his mace; * but it is doubtful whether 
the civic potentate would be carrying his mace about with him during a 
morning’s ride. 

The fall of the Tyler had a most depressing influence on his followers, 
and Bichard riding up to them, offered his services as their leader. 
“Tyler was a traitor,” cried the king : “ I will be your captain and your 
guide ; ” when several of the mob consented to transfer themselves, like 

* Others say that the mace in the hands of Walworth was not the official mace, but a 
mace belonging to a billiard marker in the mob. It is pretty certain, that wherever the 
mace may have come from, the insolence of Tyler furnished the cue. 


CHAP. V.J RICHARD MARRIES ANNE OF BOHEMIA. 189 

so many tools, from the hands of Wat to those of Richard. Some of 
the rioters sneaked quietly away, while those that remained were para¬ 
lysed ; for it was always the characteristic of an English mob, to go on 
very valiantly as long as they had it all their own way, but to turn tail 
and flee on the very first symptom of earnest resistance. 

Richard, finding himself once more powerful, instead of tempering 
justice with mercy, threw in a strong seasoning of the most highly 
spiced cruelty, and commenced a series of executions, in which there 
were nearly fifteen hundred victims to royal vindictiveness. As might 
have been expected from the state of royal honour at the time, he at 
once revoked all the charters to which he had agreed—an act which 
proved that Tyler took a very fair view of the worth of the concessions 
he had rejected. Jack Straw, one of the rioters, after being tauntingly 
told by the authorities that he, Straw, deserved to be thrashed, was 
among the sufferers by the law; and an act was passed by which “ riots 
and rumours and other such things” were turned into high treason. 
Considering that rumour has an incalculable number of tongues, which 
are not unfrequently all going at once, there must have been plenty to 
do under the act by which all rumours were converted into high treason 

In the year 1382, Richard was married to Anne of Bohemia, a most 
accomplished Bohemian girl, and the daughter of Charles IV., the 
highly respectable emperor. The king had in the commencement of 
his reign been surrounded by a low set, placed about him by his mother, 
the Princess of Wales, for the purpose of excluding his uncles, who 
could not be expected to mix with ministers and officers whose vulgarity 
was shocking, and whose meanness was quite detestable. One of these 
fellows, John Latimer, a Carmelite friar, and an Irishman, gave Richard 
a parchment containing the particulars of a conspiracy to place the 
crown on the head of his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster. The Duke 
swore that the whole story was false; his accuser swore the contrary, 
and the dispute was at length settled by the strangulation of Latimer. 
Sir John Holland, the king’s half-brother, was the alleged perpetrator 
of the savage act; and indeed this gentleman subsequently disgraced 
himself by a homicide in the royal camp, for he pounced upon and 
killed one of the favourites. “You’re no favourite of mine,” roared 
Holland, as he perpetrated the ruffianly act; which proves the holland 
of that day to have been a very coarse material. 

The Duke of Lancaster having gone abroad to urge a stale, and rather 
hopeless, claim to the throne of Castile, Richard was left in the power 
of his more turbulent uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. This unpleasant 
person at once proposed a permanent Council of Regency, to which the 
king objected, when, with dramatic effect, one of the commons produced 
from under his cloak the statute by which Edward II. had been deposed, 
and holding it to Richard’s head, implied that his consent or his life 
were his only alternatives. Upon this he gave his consent, but about 
two years afterwards, at a council held in May, 1389, he suddenly took 
what is commonly called a new start, and rising up, addressed Gloucester 


190 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK III. 


with the words, “ I say, Uncle, do you know how old I am ? ” “ Of 

course I do,” replied Gloucester, a little puzzled at the oddness of the 
question; “ you are in your twenty-second year ; and a fine boy you are 
of your age,” continued the crafty Duke ; “ but why so particular about 



Richard thinks it high time he managed his own affairs. 


dates at the present moment?” “Because,” replied the king, “I’ve 
been thinking, if I hn not old enough to manage my own affairs now, I 
never shall be.” 

An expression of “hoity toity ! ” came into the countenance of the duke ; 
but Richard continued, with much earnestness, that all the young men of 
his age were released from the control of their guardians, and he did 
not see why he should any longer be kept morally in pinafores. With 
this he thanked the council for their past services, which, however, he 
declared he should no longer require. Before there was time to prevent 
him, he had snatched the seals from the Archbishop, and seized the 
bunch of keys from the Bishop of Hereford. Everybody was completely 
dumfoundered by this exhibition on the part of a lad who had never 
before been known to do more than stammer out a bashful “bo! ” to some 
goose he may have met with in his youthful wanderings. Gloucester 









































































































































































































CHAP. V ] ARREST OF THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. JP1 

was driven from the council, and the whole thing was done before any 
one present had time—or if he had time he certainly omitted the oppor¬ 
tunity—to say “ Jack Robinson.” An affecting reconciliation afterwards 
took place between Gloucester and the king; but we believe the recon¬ 
ciliation itself to have been more affected than the parties who were 
concerned in it. 

Richard had soon afterwards the misfortune to lose his wife; and in 
1394 he went over to Ireland with a considerable army, but, as it would 
seem, less for the purpose of making war than making holiday. The 
English king never struck a blow, and the Irish did not resist, so that 
the whole affair was a good deal like that portion of the performance of 
Punch, in which one party is continually bobbing down his head, while 
the other is furiously implanting blows on vacancy. Richard entertained 
the Irish with great magnificence, and at one of the banquets said the 
evening was so pleasant he wished he could make several knights of it. 
Some of the guests taking up the idea, persuaded him to make several 
knights by knighting them, which he did with the utmost affability. 

Richard did not remain very long a widower, for in October 1396 
he married Isabella the daughter of Charles VI., an infant prodigy, for 
she was scarcely more than seven, though a prodigy, according to Frois¬ 
sart, of wit and beauty. Our private opinion—which w r e do not hesitate 
to make public—is that there must have been some mistake about the 
infant’s age, and that the parents and nurses of that period were 
not so particular in proving registers and records of birth as they might, 
could, or should have been. The wit of a child of seven must have 
been fearfully forced to have been so early developed; and in spite of 
the tendency there has always been to exaggerate the merits of royalty, 
we respectfully submit that the facetice of a child of seven must have 
been of the very smallest description. The king, who had never been 
cordially reconciled to Gloucester, was annoyed by the opposition of the 
latter to the royal marriage, and resolved on striking a blow at his uncle 
as well as at one or two of his chief partisans. Richard’s plan was to ask 
people to dinner, and in the middle of one of the courses, give a signal 
to a sheriff’s officer, who was concealed under the table-cloth, from 
which he sprang out and arrested the visitor. He served the Earls of 
Warwick and Arundel one after the other in this way, having invited 
them each in turn to a chop, which it was designed that they should 
eventually get through the agency of a hatchet.* 

His uncle Gloucester was not to be caught in this way, and declined 
several invitations to a tete-a-tete , when Richard, determined to accom¬ 
plish his object, went to Bleshy Castle in Essex, where his uncle was 
residing. “ As you w^on’t come to see me, I’ve come to see you,” were 
the king's artful words, when he was naturally invited to partake of that 
fortune du pot which is the ever-ready tribute of English hospitality. 
While Richard was doing the amiable with the Duchess, Gloucester, 

* This must not be confounded with an old legend, that he asked his friends occasion¬ 
ally to a chop at Hatchett’s—the well known hotel in Piccadilly. 


192 


COMIC HISTOR1 OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK III. 


the Duke, was seized by one of the bailiffs in the suite —disguised, of 
course, as a gentleman of the household—and hurried to the Essex 
shore, where he was shoved off in a boat, and conveyed, almost before 
he could fetch his breath, to Calais. 

It was the practice of Richard to do things by fits and starts; so that 
he accomplished an object very often by getting people to aid him with 
out knowing exactly what they were about, in consequence of the sud 
denness with which he claimed their services. A few days after poor 
Gloucester had been “ entered outwards” for Calais, the king went to 
Nottingham Castle, where, taking his uncles Lancaster and York by 
surprise, he pulled out a document, requesting them to favour him with 
their autographs. They could not very well refuse a request so strangely 
made, and it eventually turned out that they had put their names to a 
bill of indictment against Gloucester, Warwick, and Arundel. A Par 
liament was called to try the traitors, who were condemned, as a matter 
of course; for Richard, walking into the house with six hundred 
men-at-arms and a body guard of archers, was pretty sure of a large 
majority. Arundel was beheaded, and a writ was issued against 
Gloucester, commanding him to return from Calais, to undergo the same 
disagreeable process. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately for the duke, he was dead before the 
writ could be served ; but the Parliament, though they could not kill him 
twice over, indulged the satisfaction of declaring him a traitor after his 
decease, by which all his property became forfeited. This proceeding 
was a good deal like robbing the dead; but it was by no means con- 
ti'ary to the spirit of the period. Warwick pleaded guilty, and was 
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in the Isle of Man—a sort of 
lucus a non lucendo, which was called the Isle of Man from there being 
( scarcely a man to be seen in the place from one week’s end to the other. 

The peculiar richness of this reign consists in the historical doubts, 
of which it is so full that the chroniclers are thrown into a state of 
pleasing bewilderment. Nobody knows what became of Gloucester 
while in captivity at Calais ; and therefore every writer is at liberty to 
dispose of the Duke in any manner that may tempt an imagination in¬ 
clining to riot and rampancy. The treatment of his Royal Highness 
becomes truly dreadful in the hands of the various antiquarians and 
others who have undertaken to deal with him. By one set of authori¬ 
ties he is strangled, in accordance with the alleged orders of the king; 
others kill him of apoplexy; a few poison him; ten or a dozen drown 
him; six or seven smother him; but all agree in the fact that he was 
surreptitiously settled. We are the only faithful recorders of the real 
fact, when we state upon our honour that nobody knows the manner of 
the duke’s death, which is involved in the dense fogs of dim obscurity. 
Into these we will not venture, lest we lose our own way and mislead 
the reader who may pay us the compliment of committing himself to our 
guidance. 


CHAP. V.] NORFOLK AND HEREFORD BANISHED. 193 

Richard having got rid of Gloucester, was anxious for the removal of 
Norfolk and Hereford, whom he involved in a quarrel with each other, 
intending that they should realise the legend of the Cats of Kilkenny. 
When, however, they had entered the lists to decide their dispute by 
wager of battle, Richard thought it better to run no risk of either of 
them escaping, and he therefore sentenced both to banishment. Poor 
Norfolk, a pudding-headed fellow, who might have gone by the name of 
the Norfolk Dumpling, was soft enough to die of grief at Venice, on his 
road to Jerusalem, whither he contemplated a pilgrimage. Hereford 
remained in France, having been promised a pardon, but as it did not 
arrive he took French leave to return to England, in 1399, after 
scarcely more than a year’s absence. His retinue was so small as to be 
utterly ridiculous, for it consisted of one exiled archbishop, fifteen 
knights, and a small lot of servants, who may be put down as sundries 
in the little catalogue. One fool, however, makes many, and one 
rebellious earl was soon joined by a number of other seditious nobles. 

The plan of Hereford was that of the political quack who pretends 
to have a specific for every disease by which the constitution is affected. 
Pie published a puffing manifesto declaring that he had no other object 
but the redress of grievances, and that the crown, was the very last 
thing to which his thoughts were directed. One of his confederates to 
whom Hereford was reading the rough draft of his proposed address, 
suggested that the disclaimer of the crown which it contained, might 
prove inconvenient, when the royal diadem was really obtainable. 
“ Don’t you see,” replied the crafty Hereford with a smile, “ I have 
not compromised myself in any way. I have only said it is the last 
thing to which my thoughts are directed, and so indeed it is, for I think 
of it the last thing at night as well as the first thing in the morning.” 
Thus with the salve of speciousness, did the wily earl soothe for a time 
the irritations of his not very tender conscience. 

The manifesto had its effect, for it is a remarkable fact that they who 
promise more than it is possible to perform, find the greatest favoui 
with the populace; for an undertaking to do what cannot be done 
always affords something to look forward to. Expectation is generally 
disappointed by fulfilment, and the most successful impostors aie con¬ 
sequently those who promise the most impracticable things without ever 
doiim anything. The imposition cannot be detected until the impossi¬ 
bility of the thing promised is demonstrated; and this does not often 
happen, for the difficulty of proving a negative is on all hands admitted. 
It was therefore a happy idea of Hereford, as a political adventurer, to 
promise a redress of every grievance ; and if he could have added to his 
pledge of interference de omnibus rebus an assurance of his ultimately 
applying his panacea to queedam alia, there is little doubt that he would 
have been even more successful than he was in augmenting the number 
of his followers. 

By the time he reached London he had got sixty thousand men of all 
sorts and sizes about him, for the people in those days were fond of 

© 


104 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


BOOK III. 


changing their leaders, and Hereford was popular as the latest novelty. 
The Duke of York—the king’s uncle—moved to the West-end, as 
Henry and his forces entered at the East; but Henry of Bolingbroke— 
alias Hereford, who was also the nephew of York invited the latter to 
a conference. After talking the matter over, the worthy couple agreed 



Henry of Bolingbroke and the Duke of York transacting business. 


to a coalition; the conduct of York being very like that of an individual 
left to guard a house, and joining with the thief who came to rob the 
premises. 

Richard, who was in Ireland, knew nothing of what was passing at 
home, for in consequence of contrary winds, the non-arrival of “ our 
usual express ” was for three weeks a standing announcement with all 
the organs of intelligence. When he received the news from his “ own 
reporter,” he started for Milford Haven, where he was almost over¬ 
whelmed -with disagreeable information from gentlemen who evinced the 
genius of true penny-a-liners in making the very most and the very 
worst of every calamitous incident. Richard’s soldiers seeing that their 
king more than ever required their fidelity and aid, immediately, accord¬ 
ing to the usual practice, ran away from him “ They deserted,” says 



















































































































































CHAP. V.] 


FLIGHT OF RICHARD. 


195 


the Chronicler, “ almost to a man,” and it is to be regretted that we 
have not the name of the “ man ” who formed the nearly solitary 
exception to the general apostacy. Whoever he may have been, he n;ust 
have exercised a great deal of self-command, for he was of course his 
own officer; he must have reviewed himself, as well as gone through 
the ceremony of putting himself on duty, and taking himself off at the 
proper periods. We must not, however, take too literally the calcula¬ 
tions of the old chroniclers, who reduce the number of Richard’s adherents 
to an almost solitary soldier, for the truth appears to be, that the king 
mustered almost six thousand men out of the twenty thousand he had 
brought with him from Ireland. Flight was therefore his only refuge, 
and selecting from his stock of fancy dresses the disguise of 
a priest, Richard, accompanied by his two half-brothers, Sir Stephen 
Scroop the Chancellor, and the Bishop of Carlisle, with nine other 
followers, set off for the Castle of Conway. There he met the Earl of 
Salisbury and a hundred men, who had eaten every morsel of food to be 
found in the place, and Richard was occupied in running backwards and 
forwards from Conway to Beaumaris, then on to Carnarvon, then back 
to Conway again, in a wretched race for a dinner. 

It is pitiable to find a king of England reduced to the condition des 
cribed in the old nursery ditty. He went to Conway for provisions; but— 

“ When he got there 
The cupboard was bare ; ” 

and the same result followed his journey to Beaumaris and Carnarvon 
Notwithstanding the number of bones that his subjects had to pick with 
him, there was not one in the larders of the three castles he visited 
“ And so,” in the emphatic words of the nursery rhyme, “ the poor dog 
had none.” So complete was the desertion of Richard, that the Master 
of the Household, Percy, Earl of Worcester, called all the servants 
together, and broke his wand of office, accompanying the act by 
exclaiming—“ Now, I ’in off to Chester, to join the Duke of Lancaster.” 
This ceremony was equivalent to a discharge of all the domestics under 
him, and the king, had he returned to his abode, would have been com 
pelled to “ do for himself ” in consequence of the disbanding of all his 
menials. The members of the establishment, fancying they had an 
opportunity of bettering themselves, did not hesitate to follow the 
example of their chief, and there is no doubt that a long list, headed 
want places, was at once forwarded to the Duke of Lancaster. 

Having ransacked every comer of Conway Castle without finding 
any provisions, Richard had nothing left, but an unprovisional surrender. 
He got as far as Flint Castle, which was only three miles from Chester; 
but he found the inhabitants had flinty hearts, and he met with no 
sympathy. Henry of Bolingbroke came to meet him, when Richard, 
touching"his hat, bid welcome to his “ fair cousin of Lancaster.” My 
lord,” replied Henry somewhat sarcastically, “ I’m a little before my 
time, but really your people complain so bitterly of your not having the 
knack to rule them, that I’ve come to help yew” Richard gave a 

o 2 


196 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


rBOOK HI. 

I 


mental “ umpli,” but added, “Well, well, be it as you willfor his 
hunger had taken away all his appetite for power. Alter a repast, unto 
which the king did much more ample justice than he had e\er done to 
his subjects, a hackney was sent for, and Richard lode a prisoner 
to Chester. No one pitied him as he passed, though the spectacle was 



Richard II. conducted a prisoner to Chester. 


a truly wretched one. The horse was a miserable hack, while Richard 
himself was hoarse with a hacking cough, caught in the various expo¬ 
sures to wind and weather he had undergone in his vicissitudes. The 
dismal cortege having put up at Litchfield, for the king and his horse 
to have a feed, of which both were greatly in want, Richard made a 
desperate attempt, while the waiter was not in the room, to escape out 
of a window. He had run a little way from his guards, but a cry of 
“ Stop thief ” caused him to be instantly pursued, and when taken 
he was well shaken, for the trouble he had occasioned. He was treated 
with increased severity, and on arriving in London was conveyed amid 
the hootings of the mob to the Tower. 

Parliament had been appointed to meet on the 29th of September, 
1399, and on that day Richard received in his prison a deputation, to 
whom he handed over the crown and the other insignia of royalty. Not 
















































































CHAP. V.] 


RICHARD SIGNS HIS ABDICATION. 


197 


satisfied with the delivery of the sceptre as a proof of the king’s abdica¬ 
tion, a wish was expressed to have it in writing, and lie signed, as 
well as resigned, without a murmur. His enemies had, in fact, deter¬ 
mined on his downfall, and they seemed anxious to be prepared at all 
points for dragging the throne from under him. In order to make 
assurance doubly or trebly sure, an act of accusation against him was 
brought before Parliament on the following day, when Richard’s conduct 
was complained of in thirty-three, or as some authorities have it, thirty- 
five * separate articles. * 

There is no doubt that Richard had behaved badly enough, but the 
articles, taking the definite and indefinite together, attributed to him a 
great deal more than he had really been guilty of. Plis punishment 
having taken place before his trial, it was of course necessary, for the 
sake of making matters square, that the offence should be made to meet 
the penalty. Had he been tried first and judged afterwards, a different 
course might have been taken, but as he had already been deposed, it 
was desirable—if only for the look of the thing—that he should be 
charged with something which would have warranted the Parliament in 
passing upon him a sentence of deposition. Upwards of thirty articles 
were therefore drawn up, for the great fact that in laying it on thick 
some is almost sure to stick, was evidently well known to our ancestors 
He was charged with spending the revenues of the crown improperly, 
and choosing bad ministers, though he might have replied that bad had 
been the best, and that he and Hobson were, with reference to choice, 
in about the same predicament. He was accused, also, of making war 
upon the Duke of Gloucester, as well as on the Earls of Lancaster and 
Chester, to which he might have responded that they began it, and that 
it was only in his own defence he had treated them as enemies. It was 
alleged against him, also, that he had borrowed money and never paid it 
back again; but surely this has always been a somewhat common 
offence, and one which the aristocracy should be the last persons in the 
world to treat with severity. In one article he was charged with not 
having changed the sheriffs often enough, and, as if to allow him no 
chance of escape, another article imputed to him that he had changed 
the sheriffs too frequently. Some of the counts in the indictment were 
utterly frivolous, and the twenty-third stated that he had taken the 
crown jewels to Ireland, as if he could not legally have done what he 
pleased with his own trinket-box. 

It must be presumed that Richard allowed judgment to go by default, 
for all the accusations were declared to be proved against him. If he 
had been assisted by a special pleader, he might have beaten his 
accusers hollow on demurrer, for many of the counts in the declaration 
were, in legal phraseology, utterly incapable of holding water.-]- Not- 

* The Pictorial History of England, -which is generally very accurate, mentions 
thirty-three articles. Rapin sets out the substance of thirty-one of the articles, and adds 
that there were four others. 

f Mackintosh, who keeps the facts always very dry, seems inclined to our opinion 
that the indictment would not have held water. 


198 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


withstanding the weakness of the articles, they were not attacked by any 
one in Parliament except the Bishop of Carlisle, who, in a miserable 
minority of one, formed the entire party of his sovereign. The vener¬ 
able prelate, in a powerful speech, talked of Kichard’s tyranny, including 
his murder of Gloucester, as mere youthful indiscretion; and described 
his excessive use of the most arbitrary power, as the exuberance of 
gaiety. The Bishop’s freedom of speech was fatal to his freedom of 
person; for he was instantly ordered into custody by the Duke of Lan¬ 
caster. No one followed on the same side as the prelate, whose 
removal to prison had the effect of checking any tendency to debate, 
and the articles were, of course, agreed to without a division. Sen 
tence of deposition was accordingly passed on the king, who had been 
already deposed, and the people of England revoked all the oaths and 
homage they had sworn to their sovereign. Such, indeed, was the 
determination of his subjects to overturn their king, that his deposition 
was not unlike the practical joke of drawing the throne literally from 



A Practical Joke. Deposition of Rickard II. 


under him. They knew he had not a leg to stand upon, and they 
seemed determined that he should not have a seat to sit down upon; 
for even established forms were overturned in order to precipitate his 
downfall 




















































































































CHAP. V.J 


CHARACTER OF RICHARD 


199 


What became of Richard after his having been deposed, is a point 
upon which historians have differed ; but the favourite belief is, that he 
was cut off with an axe by one of his gaolers at Pomfret Castle, where 
he was kept in custody. Some are of opinion that he was starved, and 
died rather from want of a chop than by one having been administered. 
Mr. Tytler believes that the unfortunate ex-monarch escaped to Scot¬ 
land, where he resided for twenty years ; but the story is doubtful, for 
even in Scotland it is impossible to live upon nothing, which would 
have been the income of Richard after his exclusion from the royal 
dignity. 

When we come to weigh this sovereign in the scale, we can scarcely 
allow him to pass without noticing his deficiency. He seems to have 
had originally a due amount of sterling metal, but the warmth of adula¬ 
tion melted away much of the precious ore, as a sovereign is frequently 
diminished in value by sweating. To this deteriorating influence 
may be added that of the clipping process, to which he was subjected 
by his enemies, who were bent on curtailing his power. He had 
by nature a noble and generous disposition, which might have made 
him an excellent monarch. But our business is with what he really was, 
and not with what he might have been. He was alternately cowardly 
and tyrannical, in conformity with the general rule—applicable even to 
boys at school—that it is the most contemptible sneak towards the 
stronger who is towards the weaker the fiercest bully. Wholesome 
resistance tames him down into the sneak again, and in pursuance of 
this ordinary routine, Richard from an overbearing tyrant, became a 
crouching poltroon, when his enemies got the upper hand of him. 

It was during this reign that the authority of the pope was vigor¬ 
ously disputed in England, chiefly at the instigation of John Wickliffe, 
who denied many of the doctrines of the church of Rome, and protested 
against its supremacy. Its influence was, moreover, weakened by its 
being in some sort “ a house divided.” Avignon had been for some 
time the papal residence, but the Italian cardinals having persuaded 
the pontiff to return to Rome, the French cardinals set up a sort of 
opposition pope, who continued to live at Avignon. Urban did the 
honours with great urbanity in the Eternal City, while Clement carried 
on the papal business at the old establishment in France, and Europe 
became divided between the Clementines and Urbanists. 

These two sects of Christians continued to denounce each other to 
eternal perdition for some years, and their trial of strength seemed to 
consist chiefly in a competition as to which could execrate the other 
with the greatest bitterness. This dissension was no doubt favourable 
to the views of Wickliffe, who, like other great reformers, renounced in 
his old age the liberal doctrines by which he had obtained his early 
popularity. 

We have alluded in the course of this chapter to a combat which was 
about to take place between the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, in pur¬ 
suance of the practice of Wager of Battle, which was in those days pre 


200 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK HI 


valent. It may seem unjust and ridiculous to the present generation, 
that the strongest arm or stoutest spear should have settled a legal dif¬ 
ference, but even in our own times it is frequently the longest purse which 
determines the issue of a law-suit. The only difference is that litigants 
formerly knocked about each other’s persons instead of making their 
assaults upon each other’s pockets, and the legal phrase, that “so and so 
is not worth powder and shot,” preserves the allegory of a combat, to which 
an action at law may be compared -with the utmost propriety. There 
has always been something chivalric in entering upon the perilous enter¬ 
prise of litigation, and we are not surprised that the forensic champions 
of England should have been originally an order of Knights Templars. 
The only military title which is still left to the legal corps is that of 
Sergeant, and the black patch in the centre of their heads is perhaps 
worn in memory of some wound received by an early member of their 
order in the days of Wager of Battle. The sword of justice may also 
he regarded as emblematical of the hard fight that is frequently required 
on the part of those who seek to have justice done to them by the laws 
of their country. 

Contemporaneously with the Wager of Battle, there was introduced 
during the reign of Henry II. a sort of option, by which suitors who 
were averse to single combat, might support their rights by the oaths of 
twelve men of the vicinage. Thus it was possible for those who were 
afraid of hard hitting to have recourse to hard swearing, if they could 
get twelve neighbours to take the oath that might have been required. 
These persons were called the Grand Assize, and formed the jurors—a 
word, as everybody knows, derived from the Latin juro , to swear—but 
the duty has since been transferred from the jury to the witnesses, who 
not unfrequently swear quite as hard as the most unscrupulous of our 
ancestors. 

We have seen that there were very few improvements in the reign of 
Itichard II.; but we think we may justly say of the sovereign, that though 
he did no good to his country, yet, in the well-known words of a contem¬ 
porary writer, “ He would if he could, but he could’nt ” 


CHAP. VI.] 


DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE EARLY BRITONS. 


201 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH 

ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 

efore entering on the fourth book 
of our history, we may perhaps be 
allowed to pause, for the purpose 
of taking a retrospective glance at 
the condition, customs, candle¬ 
sticks, sports, pastimes, pitchers, 
mugs, jugs and manners of the 
people. It is curious to trace the 
progress of art, from the coarse 
pipkin of the early Briton to the 
highly respectable tankard * found 
in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, 
which proves the teeth of the 
monks to have been decidedly 
liquorish. We must not however 
plunge prematurely into the pot 
of a more polished era: but we must 
go regularly back to the earthen¬ 
ware of our earliest ancestors. 

The furniture of the Britons was substantial rather than elegant. A 
round block of wood formed their easiest chair, which, we need hardly 
say, was easier to make than to sit upon. The earth served the purpose 
of a bed, not only for the parsley but for the people ; and in winter they 
made fires on the floor, till the Romans, who brought slavery in one hand, 
gave the brasier with the other. Thus did even subjugation tend to 
civilisation, and the very chains of the conqueror contained links for the 
enlightenment of the conquered. 

The diet of the Britons was as poor as their apartments, and consisted 
chiefly of wild berries, wild boars, and bisons. We have no record of 
their cookery, and it is doubtful whether they cooked at all, though some 
antiquarians have endeavoured to find evidence of a stew, a roast or a 
curry, and have ended after all in making a mere hash of it. In clothes 
the Britons were by no means strait-laced, though their intercourse 
with the Gauls was of inexpressible advantage to them, for it introduced 
the use of Brace®, or trowsers made of fine wool woven in stripes or 
chequers, f 

Of the domestic habits of the early tenants of our isle veiy little is 

* The tankard has no name distinctly bitten into it. 

f It is probable that we get out our own word braces from the Braccae of our forefathers. 























202 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III 


known, and we regret to say there can be little doubt they might most 
of them have been indicted for polygamy had they lived under our 
present system of laws, for a plurality of wives was in those days 
nothing singular. 

Their mode of bringing up children is wrapt in obscurity, but the 
treatment, if we are to believe a story told by Salinus, * was rather less 
tender than vigorous ; for the first morsel of food was put into the infant’s 
mouth on the point of his father’s sword, with the hope that the child 
would turn out as sharp a blade as his parent. The Saxons brought very 
material improvements to the mode of living in our island, though we 
cannot compliment them on the comfort of all their upholstery. Their 
chairs were a good deal like our camp-stools, without the material which 
forms the seat; for the Anglo-Saxons were satisfied to sit in the angle 
formed by the junction of the legs of the article alluded to. 

The drinking-cups in use at this period began to be very elaborate, 
and were made of gold or silver, while glass was a luxury unknown, 
though the venerable Bede, who had a good deal of glass in his family, 
mentions lamps and vessels of that material. The Anglo-Saxons had 
beds and bolsters; but from illustrations we have seen in the Cotton 
MS., we think that if, as they made their beds, so they were obliged to 
lie, our ancestors could not have slept very pleasantly. Some of the 
Saxon bedsteads were sexagonal boxes, into which it was impossible to 
get, without folding one’s self up into the form of an S; and another 
specimen is in the shape of an inverted cocked hat, somewhat smaller 
than the person by whom it is occupied. Nothing but a sort of human 
half-moon could have found accommodation in this semilunar cradle, in 
which to have been “cribbed, cabined, and confined,” could not have 
been very agreeable. 

Costume could scarcely be considered to have commenced before the 
Anglo-Saxon period, for the Britons persevered in a style of undress 
which was barely respectable. It is therefore most refreshing to find 
our countrymen at last with stockings to their feet and shirts to their 
backs, in which improved case they are to be met with in the Anglo- 
Saxon period. The shoe also stands boldly forward at about the same 
time, and shows an indication of that polish which was eventually to 
take a permanent footing. Amid the many irons that civilisation had 
in the fire at this date, are the curling-irons for ladies’ hair, which began 
to take a favourable turn during the Anglo-Saxon period. The armour 
worn by the military part of the population was very substantial, con¬ 
sisting chiefly of scales, which gave weight to the soldiery, and often 
turned the balance in their favour. This species of defence was, 
however, too expensive for the common men, who generally wore a linen 
thorax or “ dickey,” with which they offered a bold front to the enemy. 

It would be exceedingly difficult to give an accurate account of Anglo- 
Saxon life, for there are no materials in existence out of which a 
statement could be framed ; and though some historians do not object 

* Pictorial History of England, vol I., Book I., Chapter vi., page 129. 


CHAP. VI.] DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE EARLY BRITONS. 203 

to have “their own materials made up,” we should he ashamed to have 
recourse to this species of literary tailoring. We think it better to cut 
our coat according to our cloth ; and we had rather figure in the sparest 
Spencer of fact, than assume the broadest and amplest cloak, if it were 
made of a yarn spun from the dark web of ambiguity. What we say, 
we know, and what we are ignorant of, we know much better than to 
talk about. 

The Anglo-Saxon husbandman was little better than a serf who was 
paid for his labour by the land- 
owner; but the former furnished 
the base, without which there would 
have been no locus standi for the 
latter’s capital. It was customary 
in those days to encourage the 
peasantry by prizes, which did 
not consist of a coat for a faithful 
servitude of nearly a life, but a 
grant of a piece of the land to 
which the labourer had given in¬ 
creased value by his industry. The 
proprietors of the soil had not yet 
learned the wisdom of trying how 
much a brute could be made to eat, 
and how little a human being could 
exist upon. 

With reference to the domestic 
habits of the period, it has been 
clearly ascertained that people of 
substance took four meals a day, and as they took meat at every one, 
their substance can be no matter of astonishment. The Britons had 
not been in the habit of dressing their food, which is not surprising, 
for they scarcely dressed themselves; but the Anglo-Saxons were not 
so fond of the raw material. With them the pleasures of the table were 
carried to excess, and drinking went to such an extent, that every monk 
was prohibited from taking any more when his eyes were disturbed, and 
his tongue began to stammer. The misfortune, however, was, that as all 
who were present at a banquet, generally began to experience simul¬ 
taneously a disturbance of the eye and a stammering of the tongue, no one 
noticed it in his neighbour, and the orgies were often continued until 
the stammering ended in silence, and the optical derangement finished 

by the closing of the organs of vision. 

The chase was a popular amusement with the Anglo-Saxons, but it 
does not seem to have been pursued with much spirit, if we are to believe 
an illustration from the Cotton M.S.* of the practice of boar-hunting 
Two men and one dog are seen hunting four boars, who are walking 
leisurely two and two, while the hound and the hunters are hanging back, 

* Julius, A. 7. 



Anglo-Saxon Husbandman. 

















































204 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK III. 


as if afraid to follow their prey too closely. In another picture, from the 
Harleian MS., seven men are seen huddled together on horseback, as 
if they had all fainted at the sight of a hawk, who flaps his wings in¬ 
solently in their faces. Nothing indeed can be more pusillanimous 
than the sports of the Anglo-Saxons as shown in the illustrations of the 
period. The only wonder is, that the animals hunted did not turn suddenly 
round and make sport of the sportsmen. 

The condition of the great body of the people was that of agricultural 
labourers, who, it is said, were nearly as valuable to their employers or 
owners as the cattle, and were taken care of accordingly. In this res¬ 
pect they had an advantage over the cultivators of the soil in our own 
time, who remain half unfed, while pigs, sheep, and oxen, are made too 
much of by constant cramming. 

The Normans added little to the stock of English furniture, for we 
have looked through our statistical tables and find nothing that would 
furnish an extra leaf to our history. It is, however, about this time 
that we find the first instance of a cradle made to rock, an arrangement 
founded on the deepest philosophy; for by the rocking movement the 
infant is prepared for the ups and downs of life he will soon have to 
bear up against. 

The reign of John introduces us to the first salt-cellar on record, 
though, by the way, the first vinegar cruet is of even earlier date, for it 
is contemporary with the sour-tempered Eleanor, who is reported to have 
played a fearful game at bowls with the unfortunate Rosamond. 

When Fashion first came to prevail in dress, Taste had not yet arrived, 
and the effect was truly ridiculous. It does not follow, however, that 
if Fashion and Taste had existed together, they would have managed to 
agree; for though there is often a happy union between the two, they 
very frequently remain at variance for considerable periods. Fashion 
being the stronger, usually obtains the ascendancy in the first instance; 
but Taste ultimately prevails over her wayward rival. In nothing so 
much as in shoes, have the freaks of Fashion been exemplified. She 
has often taken the feet in hand, and in a double sense subjugated 
the understanding of her votaries. In the days of Henry I. shoes 
were worn in a long peak, or curling like a ram’s horn, and stuffed with 
tow, as if the natural toe was not sufficient for all reasonable purposes. 
The rage for long hair was so excessive that councils * were held on the 
subject, and the state of the crops was considered with much anxiety 
The clergy produced scissors at the end of the service to cut the hair of 
the congregation; and it is said of Serlo d’Abon, the Bishop of Seez, 
that he, on Easter day 1105, cut every one of the locks off Henry I.’s 
knowledge-box. 

We have hinted at the out-of-door amusements of the people, but 
those pursued within doors may deserve some passing notice. The 
juggler, the buffoon, and the tumbler were greatly in request, and we 
see in these persons the germ of the wizards, the Ramo Samees, the 

* At Limoges, in 1031, by Pope Gregory VII. in 1073, and at Rouen in 1095. 


CHAP. VI.] DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE EARLY BRITONS. 


205 


clowns, with their “ Here we ares,” and the various families of Indian 
rubber incredibles, Mackintosh marvels, or Kensington untrustables, 
that have since become in turns the idols of an enlightened British 
public. That there is nothing new under the sun, nor in the stars— 
at least those belonging to the drama—is obvious enough to any one who 
will examine the records of the past, which contain all that are declared 
to be the novelties of the present. Learned monkeys, highly-trained 
horses, and—to go a little further back—terrific combats, or sword 
dances, in which deadly foes go through mortal conflicts in a pas de deux, 
are all as old as the hills, the dales, the vales, the mountains, and the 
fountains. Even the reading easel—for those who wish to read easily— 
which was advertised but yesterday, and patented the other day, was a 
luxury in use as early as the fourteenth century. Even Polka jackets, 
imported from Cracow in Poland, were “ very much worn,” and, for 
what we know, the Polka itself may have been danced in all its pristine 
purity. In head-dresses we have seen nothing very elegant, for, during 
Richard II.’s reign, a yard or two of cloth, cut into no regular pattern, 
formed a bonnet or hood for a lady, while an arrangement in fur very 
like a muff, constituted the hat of a gentleman. 

Out-of-door sports were much in favour during the fourteenth century, 
and the priesthood were so much addicted to the pleasures of the chace, 



Fox-hunting Bishop of the Period. 





























































































































206 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK ITT 


that a clergyman was prohibited from keeping a dog for hunting unless 
he had a benefice of at least ten pounds per annum. The fox-hunting 
parson is therefore a character as old as the days of Richard II., in 
whose reign the Bishop of Ely was remarkable for activity in the 
field, where the right reverend prelate could take a difficult fence with 
the youngest and best of them. He was particularly active in hunting 
the wolf, and he often said jestingly, that the interests of his flock 
prompted him to pursue its most formidable enemy. 

We have seen what our ancestors were in their habits, pleasures, and 
pursuits, none of which differed very materially from those that the 
people of the present generation are or have been in the habit of fol¬ 
lowing. As the child is father of the man, the infancy of a country is 
the parent of its maturity. Reproduction is, after all, the nearest 
approach we can make to novelty, and though in the drama of life “ each 
man in his time plays many parts,” there is scarcely one of which he 
can be called the original representative. 


BOOK IV. 


THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY IV. TO THE END 
OF THE REIGN OF RICHARD III., a.d. 1399—1485. 


CHAPTER THE FIRST 

HENRY THE FOURTH, SURNAMED BOLINGBROKE 

he wily Henry had now got the whip 
hand of his enemies, and had grasped 
the reins of government. He ascended 
the throne on the 30th of September, 
1399, and began to avail himself at 
once of the patronage at his disposal, 
by filling up as fast as he could all vacant 
offices. His pretext for this speed was 
to prevent justice from being delayed, 
to the grievance of his people ; and by 
pretending that there w r as no time to 
elect a new parliament, he continued 
the old one, which was in a state of 
utter subservience to his own purposes 
At the meeting of the legislative as¬ 
sembly, which took place on the 6th of 
October, Thomas Arundel, the Arch 
bishop of Canterbury, made “ the 
speech of the day,” which was a power 
ful panegyric on the new sovereign 
There is no doubt that the wdiole oration was a paid-for puff, of which 
the primacy was the price, for the prelate had been lestored by Heniy 
to the archiepiscopacy, out of wdiich Richard had hurried him.. 

The new candidate for the crown gave three leasons foi claiming it, 
but when a person gives three reasons for anything, it is probable they are 
all bad, for if one were good, the other two w r ould be, of course, superfluous 
He declared his triple right to be founded, first on conquest, which was 
the rioht of the ruffian who, having knocked a man on the head, steals 
his purse and runs off with it; secondly, from being the heir, which he 
was not; and thirdly, from the crown having been resigned to him, 










208 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


which it certainly had been, when the resigning party was under duress, 
and when his acts were not legally binding. Upon these claims he 
asked the opinion of Parliament, which having been cleverly packed by 
Arundel and his whippers-in, of course pronounced unanimously in 
Henry’s favour. Upon this he vaulted nimbly on to the steps of the 
throne, and pausing before he took his seat, he cried out in a loud voice, 
“ Do you mean what you say ? ” when the clacqeurs raised such a round 
of applause that, whispering to one of his supporters, “ It’s all right,” 
lie flung himself on to the regal ottoman. Another round of applause 
from the privileged orders secured the success of the farce, and the 
usual puffing announcements appeared in due course, intimating the 
unanimous approbation of a house crowded to suffocation. This had 
been certainly the case, for the packing was so complete as to stifle 
every breath of free discussion. 

A week’s adjournment took place, to prepare for the coronation, which 
came off on the 18th of October, in a style of splendour which Froissart 
nas painted gorgeously with his six-pound brush, and which we will 
attempt to pick out with our own slender camel’s-hair. On the Saturday 
before the coronation, forty-six squires, who were to be made knights, 
took each a bath, and had in fact a regular good Saturday night’s wash, 
so that they might be nice and clean to receive the honour designed for 
them. On Sunday morning, after church, they were knighted by the 
king, who gave them all new coats, a proof that their wardrobes could 
not have been in a very flourishing condition. After dinner his Majesty 
returned to Westminster, bare-headed, with nothing on, according to 
Froissart,* but a pair of gaiters and a German jacket. The streets of 
London were decorated with tapestry as he passed, and there were nine 
fountains in Cheapside, running with white and red wine, though we 
think our informant has been drawing rather copiously upon his own 
imagination for the generous liquor. The cavalcade comprised, according 
to the same authority, six thousand horse ; but again we are of opinion 
that Froissart must have found some mare’s nest, from which to supply 
a stud of such wondrous magnitude. The king took a bath on the same 
niglit, in order perhaps to wash out the port wine stains that might have 
fallen upon him while passing the fountains. “ Call me early, if you’re 
waking,” were the king’s last words to his valet, and in the morning the 
coronation procession started for the Abbey of Westminster. Henry 
walked under a blue silk canopy, supported on silver staves, with golden 
bells at each corner, and carried by four burgesses of Dover, who 
claimed it as their right, for the loyalty of the Dover people was in those 
days inspired only by the hope of a perquisite. The king might have 
got wet through to the skin before they would have held a canopy over 
him, had it not been for the value of the silver staves and golden bells, 
which became their property for the trouble of porterage. On each side 
were the sword of Mercy and the sword of Justice, though these articles 


* Vol. II., page 699, edition 1842. 

































































































































































































































CHAP. I.J 


CORONATION OF HENRY IV. 


209 


must have been more for ornament than for use, in those days of regal 
cruelty and oppression. 

At nine o’clock the king entered the Abbey, in the middle of which a 
platform, covered with scarlet cloth had been erected; so that the pro- - 
ceedings might he visible from all comers of the Abbey. He seated 
himself on the throne, and was looking remarkably well, being in full 
regal costume, with the exception of the crown, which the Archbishop of 
Canterbury proposed to invest him with. The people, on being asked 
whether the ceremony should be performed, of course shouted “ Aye,” 
for they had come to see a coronation and were not likely to deprive 
themselves of the spectacle by becoming, at the last moment, hyper¬ 
critical of the new king’s merits. We cannot say we positively know 
there was no “ No,” but the “ Ayes ” unquestionably had it; and Henry 
was at once taken off the throne to be stripped to his shirt, which, in 
the middle of the month of October, could not have been very agreeable 
treatment. After saturating him in oil, they put upon his head a 
bonnet, and then proceeded to dress him up as a priest, adding a pair 
of spurs and the sword of justice. While his Majesty was in this motley 
costume, the Archbishop of Canterbury, clutching off the bonnet from 
the royal head, placed upon it the crown of Saint Edward. Henry was 
not sorry when these harassing ceremonies were at an end, and having 
left the Abbey to dress, returned to the Hall to dinner. Wine continued 
to play, like ginger-beer, from the fountain; but the jets were of the 
same paltry description as that which throws up about a pint a day in 
the Temple. We confess that we are extremely sceptical in reference 
to all allegations of wane having been laid on in the public streets, 
particularly in those days, when there were neither turncocks to turn it 
on, nor pipes through which to carry it. Even with our present 
admirable system of water-works, we should be astonished at an arrange¬ 
ment‘that would allow us to draw our wine from the wood in the 
pavement of Clieapside, or take it fresh from the pipe as it rolled with 
all its might through the main of the New River. Whether the liquid 
could be really laid on may be doubtful, but that it would not be worth 
drinking cannot admit of a question. Under the most favourable 
circumstances, our metropolitan fountains could only be made to run 
with that negative stuff to which the name of negus has been most 
appropriately given. Let us, however, resume our account of the 
ceremonial, from which, with our heads full of the wine sprinkled 
gratuitously over the people, we have been led to deviate. 

Dinner was served for the coronation party in excellent style, 
but before it was half over it was varied by an entree of the most 
extraordinary and novel character. It was after the second course that 
a courser came prancing in, with a knight of the name of Dymock 
mounted on the top of the animal. The expression of Henry’s astonished 
countenance gave an extra plat, in the shape of calf’s head surprised, at 
the top of the royal table. The wonder of Henry was somewhat abated 
when the knight put into the royal hand a written offer to fight any knight 

p 


‘210 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK 1Y. 


or gentleman who would maintain that the new king was not a lawful 
sovereign. The challenge was read six times over, but nobody came 



Entrance of Dymock the Champion, at the Coronation Banquet. 


forward to accept it; and indeed it was nearly impossible, for care had 
been taken to exclude all persons likely to prove troublesome, as it was 
very desirable on the occasion of a coronation to keep the thing respect¬ 
able. The champion was then presented with “ something to drink,” 
in a golden goblet, and pocketed the poculum as a perquisite. 

Thus passed off the coronation of Henry IV. which is still further 
remarkable for a story told about the oil used in anointing the 
head of the new monarch. This precious precursor of all the multitudi¬ 
nous mixtures to which ingenuity and gullibility have since given their 
heads, was contained in a flask said to have been presented by a good 
hermit to Henry Duke of Lancaster, the grandson of Henry III., who 










































































CHAP. I.] 


PARLIAMENT RESUMES ITS SITTINGS. 


‘211 


gave it to somebody else, until it came, unspilt, into the possession of 
Henry of Bolingbroke. We confess we reject the oil, with which our 
critical acidity refuses to coalesce, and we would almost as soon believe 
the assertion that it was a flask of salad oil sent from the Holy Land by 
the famous Saladin. 

The day after the ceremony, or as soon after as the disarrangement 
caused by the preparations for the Coronation could be set to rights, 
the Parliament resumed its sittings. The terrible turncoatery of the 
last few years gave rise to fearful recriminations in the House of Lords, 
and the terms “liar” and “traitor” flew from every corner of the 
building. At one time, forty gauntlets were thrown on the floor at 
the same moment, as pledges of battle, but there was as little of 
the fortiter in re as of the suaviter in viodo , and the gloves not being 
picked up became, of course, the perquisites of the parliamentary char¬ 
woman. Some wholesome acts were passed during the session, but 
the chief object of the new king was to plant himself firmly on the 
throne of England. A slip from the parent trunk was grafted on to 
the Dukedom of Cornwall, and the principality of Wales, to both 
of which Henry’s eldest son was nominated. No act of settlement 
of the crown was introduced, for his Majesty wisely thought, that 
it would only have proclaimed the weakness of his title had he made 
any attempt to bolster it. Had the question of legitimacy been tried, 
the young Earl of March would have turned out to be many steps 
nearer to the throne than Henry, who, however, laughed at his claims, 
and the old saying of “as mad as a march hare,” was quoted by a para¬ 
site, to prove the insanity of regarding March as a fit heir to the throne 
of England. Besides, the little fellow was a mere child, and was, of 
course, a minor consideration in a country which had a natural dread of 
a long regal minority. “ A boy of eight or nine” said one of the philo¬ 
sophers of the day, “ cannot sit upon the throne, without bringing the 
kingdom into a state of sixes and sevens.” It was, however, to strengthen 
the presumed legitimacy of his family that Henry got his son created 
Prince of Wales, and though the circumstance is said to have weighed 
but as a feather in the scales, the Prince of Wales’s feathers must always 
go for something in the balance. 

Richard, who was still in custody, was kept continually moving about 
from castle to castle, like a spring van in town or country, until a few of the 
Lords devised the plan of murdering Henry and restoring the late king, 
just by way of novelty. A tournament was got up, to which the king was 
politely asked, and the words “ Tilting at two. An answer will oblige,” 
might be found in the corner of the invitation card. Henry “ had much 
pleasure in accepting” the proposal to join the jousting party, but having 
received an intimation from the Earl of Rutland, his cousin and one of 
the conspirators, his Majesty did not attend the soiree . The intention 
was to have hustled him and killed him on the spot, but he did not come, 
and the jousting was, of necessity, carried on for some time by the traitors 
at the expense of each other. At length, as the day wore on, they began 

p 2 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV, 




to think it exceedingly odd that Henry had not arrived, when, suspecting 
they had been betrayed, they determined to make for Windsor, where 
they knew the king had been passing his Christmas holidays. He had, 
however, received timely warning, and had left for London, so that the 
conspirators were utterly baffled. 

On their arrival at Windsor, they hastened to surprise the Castle ; 
but the greatest surprise was for themselves, when they heard of the 
escape of their intended victim. Henry had rushed up to town to 
issue writs against every one of the traitors, who ran away in all direc¬ 
tions before he had time to return to Windsor. Some of them 
attempted to proclaim King Richard in every town they passed through; 
but they might as well have proclaimed old king Cole, or any other 
merry old soul, for they only got laughed at and slaughtered by the 
inhabitants. Poor Richard was also a sufferer by his injudicious friends, 
for it was agreed that he would become an intolerable nuisance if he 
should serve as a point for the rebels to rally round. It was therefore 
thought advisable to have him abated, and according to the Chroniclers 
of the day, who confess they know nothing about it, he was either 
starved or murdered. The condition of Richard’s young wife, Isabella, 
a girl of eleven, the daughter of King Charles of France, was 
exceedingly deplorable. She had brought a large fortune to her 
husband, and upon his death, her father wished her to be restored to 
the bosom, and her money to the pockets of her family. The young 
lady was promised by an early boat; but Charles insisted that she 
should be allowed to bring her dowry back with her. Henry, who had 
spent at least half of it, declined this proposal, and her papa, who had 
an eye to the cash, would not receive her without, so that she really 
seemed on the point of becoming a shuttlecock tossed between two 
enormous battledores in the shape of Dover and Calais. Every kind 
of paltry excuse was set up to avoid payment of the demand, and 
the English pretended to find upon their books an old claim for the 
ransom of the French king, John, who had been taken by Edward III., 
and had never been duly settled for. This plea of set-off was over-ruled 
on demurrer by the French, who kept reiterating their applications for 
Richard’s widow and her dowry, with a threat of ulterior proceedings if 
the demand were not speedily complied with. At length Henry agreed 
to restore her like a toad, “ with all her precious jewels in her head.” 
Her old father received her with the exclamation of “ Oh, you duck of 
diamonds,” in allusion, no doubt, to the valuable brilliants she carried 
about her ; and there is every reason to believe that had her teeth been 
literally pearls, the king would have made copious extracts from the 
choice collection. 

Henry now began to consider the best means for making himself 
popular, and after thinking it well over, he came to the conclusion that 
a war would be a nice little excitement, of which he might reap the 
benefit. Upon looking about him for an eligible object of attack, 
Scotland seemed to be the most inviting ; for Robert, the actual king, 


CHAP. I.J HENRY SUMMONS ROBERT TO EDINBURGH. 213 

was old and helpless, while his eldest son David, Earl of Rothsay, was 
a drunken, dissipated, reckless, but rather clever . personage. He had 
quarrelled with his uncle the Duke of Albey, who had acted as regent 
during the illness of the king, and who was himself a remorseless 
ruffian; so that the Scotch royal family consisted of a dotard, a 
drunkard, and a bully. Henry, though he wanted a war, wished to get 
it without paying for it, to prevent the odium he might incur by taxing 
the people. He therefore tried the old plan of feudal service, by 
calling upon all persons enjoying fees or pensions, to join him in arms 
at York, under pain of forfeiture. The lay lords were ordered to come 
at their own charge with their retainers, but the result afforded a strong- 
proof of the fact that a thing is never worth having if it is not worth 
paying for. Those who came in arms were fearfully out at elbows ; and 
amid the owners of fees with their retainers, was perhaps some unhappy 
Templar, with his one fee and one retainer, urged by an ordinary 
motion of course, to appear in the great cause of the King versus 
Bruce, Rothsay, and others. 

Henry began boldly with a writ of summons directed to Robert, 
greeting, and ordering him to come to Edinburgh to make submission. 
The Earl of Rothsay entered an appearance for his father; a declaration 
of war ensued on Henry’s part, when Rothsay, without putting in a plea, 
took issue at once, and threw himself upon the country. Henry, not 
expecting the action to come off so speedily, was but ill prepared, and 
after making a vain attempt at a fight—in the course of which he tried 
all his earls and failed on every count—he retired from the contest. 
He endeavoured, nevertheless, to make the best of it, and observed 
pleasantly to his followers, “ Well, gentlemen, I told you we were sure 
to beat, and so we will yet. Come, let us beat a retreat: that is better 
than not beating anything.” Thus ended, in a pitiable and most 
humiliating pun, a campaign commenced in pride, confidence, and 
insolence. 

While Henry was fooling away his time and resources in the North, 
a little matter in the West was growing into a very formidable insurrec¬ 
tion. Owen Glendower, Esquire, a Welsh gentleman “learned in the 
law,” who had held a place in the household of Richard II., perhaps as 
standing counsel, became involved in a dispute about some property 
with Lord Grey de Ruthyn. Mr. Glendower petitioned the Lords, who 
rejected his suit, which so irritated him that he instantly exchanged the 
pen for the sword, the forensic gown for the coat of mail, and dashing 
his wig violently on the floor, ordered a helmet to fit the head and the 
box hitherto devoted to peaceful horse-hair. 

In the course of his legal studies he had learned something of the art 
of making out a title, and he immediately set to work to prove himself 
the lineal descendant of the native Welsh princes. By drawing upon 
fact for some portions, and his imagination for the remainder, he con¬ 
trived to get up an excellent draft abstract, which he endorsed with the 
words “Principality of Wales. Grey Rutiiyn ats self;” and 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK IV. 


214 

adding the usual formula of “ Mr. 0. Glendower, to settle and advise, 
2 Guas .; Clerk, 2s. 0 cl .he placed it among his papers. The Welsh 
peasants set him down as a magician at the least, and the barrister had 
no difficulty in placing himself in a little brief authority over them. 



Mr. Owen Glendower armed by his trusty clerk. 


Assisted by his clerk the trusty Thomson, Mr. Owen Glendower 
armed himself for the contest upon which he had determined to enter ; 
and the learned gentleman, who had never used any weapon more 
formidable than a file, upon which he had occasionally impaled a decla¬ 
ration, now girded on the sword, and prepared to listen to the war- 
trumpet as the only summons to which he would henceforth pay 
attention. Taking the somewhat professional motto of “ deeds not 
words,” he sallied forth, as he boldly declared, for the purpose of 
subjecting all his opponents to special damage. 

He collected a small band, and made an attack on the property of Grey 
de Rutliyn, for which the king had Mr. Glendower’s name published in 
the next batch of outlaws. Irritated by this indignity, the learned 
gentleman declared himself sovereign of Wales, observing with much 
quaintness “ One may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, and why 
not for a Welsh rabbit?” Henry at once marched in pursuit, but the 






















































































































CHAP. I.] 


BATTLE OF NISBET MOOR. 


215 


barrister was cautious enough to avoid an action, and led liis antagonist 
all over the Welsh circuit, by which he continually put off the day of 
trial. Henry, who had a variety of other little matters to attend to, was 
compelled to allow the cause of himself versus Glendower to stand over 
to an indefinite period. 

Among the businesses getting into arrear at home, was an absurd 
declaration of war by Walleran of Luxemburgh, the Count of Ligny 
and St. Pol, who had married a sister of the deposed Richard, and was 
suddenly seized with a fit of fratemo-legal or brotlierly-in-lawly affection, 
and began to talk of avenging his unfortunate relative. In spite of the 
recommendations of his best friends, who all urged him “ not to make a 
fool of himself,” he insisted on going to sea, where a fate a good deal 
like that of the three wise men of Gotham appeared to threaten him. 

Conspiracies now sprung up on every side, and a rumour was spread, 
that Richard was alive in Scotland, and was coming presently to England 
at the head of a large army, to play old Harry with Henry’s adherents. 
Never was a cry of “ Bogy” more utterly futile than this assertion, for 
Richard was really dead, though it suited a certain party of malcontents 
to resuscitate him for their own purposes. Henry was exceedingly angry 
at the rumour, and every now and then cut off some half dozen heads, 
as a punishment for running about with a false tale, but there was no 
checking the evil. 

At length an army came from Scotland, but Richard was not with it, 
and the Scotch no longer kept up the delusion, but, like the detected 
impostor who confessed “ It is a swindle, and now do your worst,” they 
acknowledged the hoax they had been previously practising. The 
Scotch proved mischievous, but impotent; and Henry was not far from 
the truth when in one of his remonstrances he remarked, “ You are 
doing yourselves no good, nor me either.” They were defeated at 
Nisbet Moor by the English, under the command of a disaffected Scot, 
the old Earl of March, who was piqued at his daughter Elizabeth 
having been jilted by the Earl of Rothsay, to whom she had been 
affianced. The Earl of Rothsay had made another, and let us hope, a 
better match, so that the action fought at Nisbet Moor was, as far as 
the Earl of March was concerned, in reality an action for a breach of 
promise of marriage. Young Rothsay had united himself to Miss 
Mariell Douglas, the daughter of old Douglas, who had not only got 
for his child the husband—that was to have been—of Earl March's 
daughter that was, but had also obtained for himself a grant of the 
estates of the father of Rothsay's ex-intended. Douglas, with ten 
thousand men at his heels, hurried to take possession, and they soon 
carried sword and fire—but we believe it was fire without coals—to 
Newcastle. Having completely sacked this important city—but mark ! 
there were in those days no coals to sack—he returned laden with 
plunder, towards the Tw r eed, for which way he went, was — like 
Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee—a matter of pure indifference. The 
Duke of Northumberland, aided by his son, the persevering Percy, sur 


210 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK TV*. 


named Hotspur, with the indignant March, had got an army in the rear, 
when Douglas, seeing a good position between the two forces, called 
Homildon Hill, was the first to take possession of it. Harry Percy 
was about to charge up the hill, when the Earl of March, seizing his 
bridle, backed him cleverly into the ranks, and advised him to begin the 
battle with his archers. The advice was taken; they shot up the hill, 
and success was the upshot. Every arrow told with terrific effect upon 
the Scotch, who presented a phalanx of targets, and the stalwart troopers 
became at length so perforated with darts, that they looked like so many 
fillets of veal, skewered through and through by the enemy. Douglas 
was wounded in so many places, that he resembled a porcupine rather 
than a Scottish chief, and he was taken into custody, regularly trussed 
like a chicken prepared for roasting. Among his fellow-prisoners were 
the Earls of Moray and Angus, who had tried in vain to escape; but 
neither did Moray nor Angus reach their own quarters in time to escape 
the grasp of the enemy. 

The battle of Homildon Hill, which we have thus faintly described, 
was fought on the 14th of September, 1402, while Henry himself was 
much less profitably occupied in hunting up his learned friend, or rather 
his knowing opponent, Owen Glendower. The lawyer-like cunning of 
this gentleman carried him triumphantly through all his engagements; 
and though good cause might have been shown against it, yet, by his 
cleverness and tact in Wales, he was nearly successful in getting his rule 
made absolute. 

Henry’s next annoyance was an impertinent letter from a former friend 
and “ sworn brother,” the Duke of Orleans, uncle of Isabella, the widow 
of the late king, and the acknowledged “ female in distress,” whom it was 
fashionable for the “ recognised heroes” of that day to talk about aveng¬ 
ing. The letter of the Duke of Orleans was a mixture of ferocity and 
facetiousness; it deplored the inactivity prevailing in the military market, 
and offered to do a little business with Henry, either in “lances, battle- 
axes, swords, or daggers.” He sneeringly repudiated “ bodkins, hooks, 
points, bearded darts, razors, and needles,” as if Henry had been in the 
habit of arming himself with the fittings of a work-box or a dressing- 
case. An answer was returned in the same sarcastic strain, and an angry 
correspondence ensued, in which the parties gave each other the lie, 
offered to meet in single combat, and indeed entered into a short but 
sharp wordy war, which was followed by no more serious consequences. 

Northumberland, who had struck for the defence of his country, now 
struck for his wages, which were unsatisfactory, and several other patriotic 
noblemen insisted on more liberal terms for their allegiance. Henry 
having resisted the extortion, gave, of course, great offence to his faith¬ 
ful adherents, who veered, at once, clean round to the scale of the king’s 
enemies. In those days the principles of great men seemed to go upon 
a pivot, and Northumberland’s swivel was evidently in fine working order 
on the occasion to which we have alluded. Scroop, the Archbishop of 
York, who might well have been called the Unscrupulous, advised that 


CHAP. I.] 


DOUGLAS MADE PRISONER. 


217 


Henry should be treated as a wrongful heir, and that the young Earl of 
March should be rallied round, as the rightful heir, by the dissatislied 
nobles. They sent a retaining fee to Owen Glendower, and marked 
upon his brief “ With you theEarl of Northumberland and Henry Percy,” 
and appointed a consultation at an early period. Earl Douglas was re¬ 
leased from custody without payment of costs, on condition of his leaving 
the rebels ; and O. Glendower, Esquire, married the daughter of his 
prisoner, Mortimer, the young Earl of March’s uncle. 

The conspirators having consulted, determined to proceed, and though 
Northumberland himself was kept at home by indisposition, Hotspur 
marched to meet Glendower. That learned gentleman, who had 
probably not received his refresher, did not come, but young Percy, 
nevertheless, sent to Henry a written notice of trial. The king proposed 
referring it to arbitration, but the offer was treated with contempt; and 
he then rejoined that he had no time to waste in writing, but he would, “ by 
dint of sword and fierce battle,” prove their quarrel was false and feigned; 
“ whereupon,” as the lawyers have it, “ issue was joined.” Each army 
consisted of about fourteen thousand men, and on the morning of the 
21st of July, 1403, both being full of confidence, began sounding their 
horns, or blowing their own trumpets. Hotspur and Douglas led the 
first charge with irresistible vigour, and one or two gentlemen who had 
carried their loyalty so far as to wear the royal arms as a dodge, while 
the king fought in plain clothes, paid with their lives the penalty of 
their fidelity. Henry of Monmouth, the young Prince of Wales, got 
several slaps in the face, and once or twice exclaimed, in the Norman- 
Frencli of the period, “ Oh! Mon mouth! ” but he nevertheless con¬ 
tinued to the last, showing his teeth to the enemy. Douglas and 
Hotspur were not ably supported, and the latter was struck by an arrow 
shot at random; while Douglas, losing command over his head, took to 
his heels, and becoming positively flighty in his flight, fell over a preci¬ 
pice. This was his downfall but not his death, for he was picked up and 
made prisoner. Old Percy who had been absent from ill health, but 
had now got much better from his illness, was marching to join the 
insurgents with a considerable force, and had paused on the road to 
take his medicine, when he was met by a messenger, who glancing at the 
physic, exclaimed, “ Ah ! my lard I’ve got a blacker dose than that for 
you.” With this, he administered two pills in the shape of two separate 
announcements of the deaths of Hotspur and Worcester, the son and 
brother of the Earl, who bidding good morning to his retainers, all of 
whom he dismissed, shut himself up in the castle of Warkworth. The 
king soon routed him out, when Northumberland, like an old sycophant 
as he was, pretended that Hotspur had acted against his advice, for the 
venerable humbug, though eager enough to share in his son’s success, 
was meanly anxious to repudiate him in his misfortunes. By this paltry 
proceeding, Northumberland was allowed to get off cheap, and even to 
win commiseration as the victim of the imprudence of his heir, though 
the fact was that the latter had been completely sacrificed to his parent’s 


218 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK IV. 


selfishness. In the year 1404, the old cry of “Dick’s alive” was 
renewed, and some people even went so far as to say that they had 
recently walked and talked with the deposed King Richard. The 
rumour ran that he was living in Scotland, and one Serle, an old servant, 
went over to recognise his Majesty, but found in his place the court 
jester, who bore some resemblance to the unfortunate sovereign. Serle, 
however, determined on playing his cards to the best advantage, and 
thought it a good speculation to play the fool off in place of the king, 
a trick which was for a time successful. The buffoon humoured the 
joke, which was a sorry one for its author, who was executed as a traitor, 
and it might he as well if the same justice were dealt out to similar 
delinquents in the present day, for indifferent jokes are the madness 
of few for the gain of nobody. 

Henry was now frightfully embarrassed by the quantity of hills pour¬ 
ing in upon him for carrying on the war in Wales, and every day brought 
him a fresh account which he had never expected. Even the musicians 
made a claim, and the king running his eye down a long list of items, 
including a drum, a ditto, a ditto, a flute half a day, a pandean pipe 
et cater a , et cater a, exclaimed mournfully to his treasurer, “ Alas ! I fear 
I cannot manage to pay the piper.” In fact, the claims on account of 
the war left him no peace, and he proposed taking a quantity of the 
property of the church to settle with his creditors. 

This proposition raised a perfect flame amongst the whole body of the 
clergy. The Archbishop of Canterbury instantly took fire, while the in¬ 
ferior members of the church were fearfully put out; and cold water being 
thrown on the attempt, it was soon extinguished. Fighting was still 
the business that Henry had on hand; for as fast as one of his foes was 
down, another was ready to come on with fresh vigour. Old Northum¬ 
berland could not keep quiet, hut Owen Glendower was perhaps the 
most troublesome of all the king’s enemies. The rapidity of the 
learned gentleman’s motions kept the other side constantly employed; 
for he never hesitated to change the venue, or resort to a set-off, when 
he wished to baffle his antagonists. At length, lack of funds, and its 
customary concomitant, the loss of friends, compelled him not only to 
stay proceedings, but to keep out of the way to avoid his heavy respon¬ 
sibilities. He is supposed to have been engaged for years in a pro¬ 
tracted game at hide and seek, living at the homes of his daughters and 
friends, but disguised always in a shepherd’s plaid, to prevent the ser¬ 
vants from knowing him. What became of him was never known, and, 
unfortunately for the historian, there were in those days no registrars 
of either births, deaths, or marriages. Some say that Owen Glendower 
ended his days at Mornington ; but they might as well say Mornington 
Crescent; and the place of his interment is no less doubtful; for where 
he was buried is now buried in obscurity. 

There is a tradition that his tomb is in the Cathedral of Bangor, but 
this story is of little value to any one, except to the Bangor beadle, 
who makes an occasional sixpence by calling the attention of visitors to 


CHAP. I.] 


DEATH OF ROBERT. 


219 


a spot which he, and Common Rumour, between them, have dignified with 
the title of the tomb of Owen Glendower. We all know the character 
which Common Rumour bears for an habitual violation of truth; and 
we are afraid that if she is no better than she should be, the Bangor 
beadle is not so good as he ought to be. 

Henry was fortunate in overcoming his enemies, but his treatment of 
them was frequently cruel in the extreme. Poor old Robert, the 
nominal King of Scotland, was driven about from abbey to abbey, but 
had no sooner got comfortably settled in one, than a cry of “ Here he 
is ! we’ve got him ! ” drove him to take refuge in another. At last he 
hid himself in the Isle of Bute, where he is supposed to have remained 
to the close of his existence, and it is certain that he never addressed to 
the Isle of Bute the celebrated apostrophe, “ Isle of Beauty, Fare thee 
well! ” His eldest son Rothsay was imprisoned in the castle of Falk¬ 
land (March 1402), into which it is supposed he was pitched with a 
pitcher, containing about a pint of water, and furnished by a crusty 
gaoler, with a piece of crust. Even this miserable diet is said to have 
been very irregularly administered, and was of course insufficient for an 
able-bodied young man like Rothsay. He was treated like a pauper 
under the new Poor-law, and is believed to have died of inanition; for 
though the chronicles of that day attributed his death to starvation, the 
chronicle of our day prefers a genteeler term. The King of Scotland’s 
second son, James, had been shipped by his father for France, to be out 
of the way, when the vessel was seized by the crew T s of some English 
cruisers. 

Robert died of grief at the loss of young James, whom he called his 
precious jewel of a gem, and the little fellow, though a prisoner, was 
lodged and boarded in comfort, allowed masters, and instructed in all 
the usual branches of a sound education. 

Constitutional liberty had in previous reigns taken very irregular 
hops, skips, and jumps ; but, during the reign of Henry, it began taking 
rapid strides. During the latter part of his life the tranquillity of his 
own country gave him the power to lend out his soldiers to fight the 
battles of others ; but it never paid him: for though there was a good 
deal owing to him, he was unable to get the money. His second son, 
the Duke of Clarence, had landed in Normandy with a large army; but 
finding he could not get a penny to pay his troops, he began to insist on 
a settlement. He was insultingly told that he was not wanted, and 
might take his army back again; but he soon brought the people to 
their senses by a little prompt pillage. The matter was arranged, and 
the Duke of Orleans brought all the ready money he could raise as the 
first instalment to the head-quarters of the English. It is doubtful 
whether the payments were regularly kept up, but every possible pre 
caution was taken that bail or bills could afford. 

Henry's reign was now drawing to a close, and he became exceedingly 
sentimental in the latter years of his existence. He had discovered the 
hollowness of the human heart, together with its propensity for wearing 


220 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


BOOK IV. 


a mask, and the keen perception of this perpetual fancy-dress hall of the 
finest feelings, rendered him gloomy, solitary, and suspicious. He was 
also in a wretched state of health, for nothing agreed with him, and he 
agreed with nobody. He became jealous of the popularity of his son, 
whom he declared to be everything that was bad, though the after life of 
the young man gave the perfect lie to the parental libel. Many anec¬ 
dotes are related of the low freaks of Henry and his companions, who 
seem to have been the terror of the police and the people. If we are 
to believe all that is said concerning them, we should look upon the 
Prince of Wales and his associates as the foes to that great engine of 
civilisation the street-door knocker, and the determined enemies to 
enlightenment by the agency of public lamps. 

Anecdotes are told of their being brought before the Chief Justice 
Gascoigne, the Denman, Pollock, or Wilde of his day, who took cog¬ 
nizance of a case, which would induce either of these learned and 
upright individuals to exclaim to a complainant, “ You must not come 
here, sir; we don’t sit here to decide upon the merits of street rows.” 
Gascoigne, who was a chief justice and a police magistrate all in one— 
like an article of furniture intended for both a bedstead and a chest of 
drawers, but offering the accommodation of neither—Gascoigne committed 
to prison some of the Prince’s associates. The learned judge, setting a 
precedent that might be followed with advantage in the present day, 
inflicted imprisonment, instead of a fine, on those to whom the latter 
would have been no punishment. The Prince of Wales, on hearing of 
the incarceration of his companions, rushed into court, demanding a 
habeas corpus, and drew his sword upon the judge when asked for a case 
in point. Judge Gascoigne ordered the usher to take the Prince into 
custody, and the officer of the court having hesitated, young Henry, 
politely exclaiming, “I’m your prisoner, sir,” surrendered without a 
murmur. When the king heard the anecdote, he became mawkishly 
sentimental, exclaiming, “Happy the monarch to have such a good judge 
for a justice, and happy the father to have a son so ready to yield to 
legal authority.” If the latter is really a subject for congratulation, 
what happiness the police reports of each day ought to afford to those 
parents who have had sons confined in the station-houses for intoxication, 
by whom the penalty of five shillings has been paid with cheerful 
alacrity. We can fancy the respectable sire of some youth who has 
formed the subject of a case at Bow-street., and who has submitted to 
the decision of the Bench ; we can imagine the parent exclaiming with 
enthusiasm, “ Happy the Englishman to have such a magistrate to 
enforce the law, and such a son to yield obedience to its orders.” 

Another anecdote is told of the amiable feeling existing between the 
sovereign and his heir, which we insert without vouching for its truth, 
though it is not by any means improbable. The king was ill in bed, 
and the Prince of Wales was sitting up with him in the temporary 
capacity of nurse. The son, however, seemed to be rather waiting for 
his father’s death, than hoping for the prolongation of his life, and the 


CHAP. 1.] 


DEATH OF HENRY IV. 


00 | 
'V /Sj 1 

King, having gone off into a fit, the Prince, instead of calling for assist¬ 
ance, or giving any aid himself, heartlessly took that opportunity to see 
how he should look in the Crown, which always hung on a peg in the 
royal bed-chamber. Young Henry was figuring away before a clieval 
glass, with the regal bauble on his head, and was exclaiming “ Just the 
thing, upon my honour,” when the elder Henry, happening to recover, 
sat up in his bed, and saw the conduct of his offspring. “ Hallo,” cried 



Unseemly conduct of Henry, Prince of Wales. 


tne King, “ who gave you leave to put that on? I think you might 
have left°it alone till I’ve done with it?” The Prince muttered some 
excuse, which was not long needed, for on the 23d of March, 1413, 
Honrv IV died, in the 47th year of his age, and the 14th of his reign. 
The character of Henry IV. may be told in a few words, and the fewer 
the better for his reputation, inasmuch as it is impossible to furnish him 






















































































































































































































222 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK IV. 

with that passport to posterity with which it would give us pleasure to 
present the whole of our English sovereigns. Other historians have 
puffed him, hut the only puffing we can promise him is a regular 
blowing up. He was cautious how he gave offence to his subjects, but 
this was less out of regard to their interests than care for his own. He 
knew that the hostility existing towards him among the nobles on 
account of his usurpation, could only be counteracted by obtaining the 
support of the people. He therefore refrained from irritating the latter 
by taxing them heavily for his wars, but he never scrupled to help him¬ 
self to the goods of the former whenever his exigencies required. The 
only difference between him and some of his predecessors in the practice 
of extortion and robbery, is in the fact that while others plundered 
principally the people, Henry IV. thought it better worth his while 
to plunder the nobles. Some of our predecessors have praised his 
prudence, which was unquestionably great; for never was a king more 
cunning in his attempts to preserve the crown he had unjustly acquired 
He was not wantonly barbarous in the treatment of his enemies when 
he got them into his power, and, in this respect, his conduct presents an 
honourable contrast to that of the sanguinary monsters who committed 
the greatest crimes to surmount the smallest obstacles. He did not 
seek to stop the merest breath of disaffection by the most monstrous 
murders, nor to rid himself of the annoyance of suspicion by incurring 
the guilt of slaughtering the suspected. His treatment of his predeces¬ 
sor, Richard, and one or two others, who are yet unaccounted for, and 
returned “ missing ” in the balance-sheet of history, must always leave 
a blot, or, rather, a shower of blots, throwing a piebald aspect upon the 
character of Henry. Among the distinguished individuals who shed 
lustre on a reign which derived no brilliance from the sovereign himself, 
are the poets Chaucer and Gower, as well as William Wickham, and 
Richard Whittington, the Lord Mayor of London. We have been at 
some pains to trace the story of the latter, in the hope of being able to 
find accommodation for his cat in the pages of history. We regret to 
say that our task has ended in the melancholy conviction that the cat of 
Whittington must make one in that imaginary happy family which com¬ 
prises the puss in boots of the Marquis of Carabas, the rats and lizards 
of Cinderella, and the chickens of Mother Care}". 

Among the distinctions to which this reign is entitled, we must not 
omit to mention that it was the first in which the practice prevailed of 
burning what were called heretics. Had this circumstance occurred to 
us before we commenced the character of Henry, we think we might have 
spared ourselves the trouble of writing it. The burning of heretics 
ought, of itself, to brand his name with infamy. 


C11A.P. II.] 


HENRY THE FIFTH. 




CHAPTER THE SECOND 

HENRY THE FIFTH, SURNAMED OF MONMOUTH. 

Henry the Fifth, on coming to the throne, pursued the policy of 
conciliation ; but it so happened that his first act of magnanimity was 
bestowed in a quarter where it could do no good, and excite no gratitude. 
The act in question, for which he has been greatly praised, was the 
removal of the body of Richard II. from an obscure tomb in the Friars’ 
Church, at Langley, to a place beside his first wife, the good Queen 
Anne, in the Abbey of Westminster. Had Richard II. been aware of the 
honour reserved for him after his death, he might probably have 
requested the advance of a small instalment during his lifetime, when it 
would have been of some use to him. The greatest magnificence that can 
be lavished on a tomb will scarcely compensate for an hour’s confinement 
within the dreariness of a prison. Had Richard been living, there 
would have been some magnanimity in restoring him to his proper 
position ; but giving to his remains the honours due to sovereignty was 
only a confession on the part of Henry that he and his father had usurped 
the crown of one who, being dead, could no longer claim retribution for 
his injuries. It was a mockery to pretend to uphold the deposed king 
by the agency of an upholsterer, and the funeral was nothing more than 
another black job added to the many that had already arisen out of the 
treatment of poor Richard 

The release of the Earl of March from captivity, and the restoration 
of the son of Hotspur to the honours of the Percies, were acts of more 
decided liberality; but, if we are to believe the gossip of the period, 
these two young gentlemen were a pair of spoons, wholly incapable of 
making a stir of any kind. The Earl of March was, it is true, a spoon 
of the king’s pattern, for he was a scion of a royal stock, but he never¬ 
theless had enough of the fiddle-head about him to render it certain 
that he could be played upon, or let down a peg when occasion required. 

From the wildness of Henry’s life during his Welsh Princedom, it 
was expected that his career as king would have been a series of 
practical jokes upon his officers of state and his subjects in general. 
He had, when a young man, “ scrupled not,” according to Hume, “ to 
accompany his riotous associates in attacking the passengers in the 
streets and highways, and despoiling them of their goods; and he 
found an amusement in the incidents which the tears and regret of 
these defenceless people produced on such occasions.” It was feared, 
therefore, that he would have continued to riot in runaway knocks, not 
only at the doors but upon the heads of the public. Happily he 
disappointed these expectations, for from the moment of his ascending 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


%'U 

the throne he became exceedingly well conducted and highly respectable. 
He did not exactly cut his old friends, but told them plainly that they 
must reform if they desired to retain the acquaintance of their sovereign. 
He stated plainly that it would not do for the king of England to be 
figuring at fancy balls, and kicking his heels about at Casinos, as in 
former times, for he was now no longer a man about town, but the 
sovereign of a powerful country. Poor Gascoigne, the Chief Justice, 
had approached the royal presence with fear and trembling, fully 
expecting to be paid off without any pension, for having committed 
Henry when Prince of Wales, but, to the surprise of everyone, the 
king commended the judge for his firmness, and advised him, in the 
words of the song— 

u To do the same thing were he in the same place,” 

should he, the king, be placed to-morrow in another similar position. 

In the first year of the new reign a commotion sprung up, which first 
developed itself in a violent fit of seditious bill-sticking. In the course 
of a night some party succeeded in getting out an “ effective poster,” 
announcing the readiness of “ a hundred thousand men to assert their 
rights by force of arms, if needful.” What those rights were the pla¬ 
cards did not state, and probably this would have been the very last 
subject that the hundred thousand men would have proceeded to think 
about. They were supposed to have been instigated by the Lollards, 
one of whom, Sir John Oldcastle, their leader, was sent for by the king 
to have a little talk, in the course of which the wrongs of the Lollards 
might perchance be hit upon. Sir John Oldcastle, who was one of the 
old school, found plenty to say, but he never could find any one to listen 
patiently to his rigmaroles. Henry Y. was obliged to cut the old 
gentleman short, by hinting that the statute de lieretico comburendo was 
in force, and Sir John, who had been about to fire up, cooled down very 
decidedly on hearing the allusion. Henry, finding nothing could be 
done with Oldcastle, who was as sturdy and obstinate as his name would 
seem to imply, turned him over to Archbishop Arundel. The prelate 
undertook to bring Sir John to his senses, but the junction could not be 
effected, for the objects were really too remote to be easily brought 
together. A writ was issued, but Oldcastle kept the proper officer at 
bay, and assailed him not only with obstructive missiles, but with 
derisive ridicule. At length a military force was sent out to take the 
Old-castle by storm, when Sir John unwillingly surrendered. Though 
taken he refused to be shaken in his obstinate resolves, and he pleaded 
two whole days before his judges, in the hope of wearing them out and 
inducing them to stay the proceedings, rather than subject themselves 
to the fearful blow of his excessive long-windedness. He was, however, 
condemned, but the king granted a respite of fifty days, during which 
the old fellow either contrived, or was allowed to escape from the 
T ower ; and the probability is, that the gaolors had instructions to wink, 
in the event of his being seen to pass the portals of his prison. 




CHAP. II.] 


ARREST ON TWELFTH NIGHT 


225 


Oldcastle, or Lord Cobham, as he was also called, had no sooner got 
out of prison than he rushed into the flames of sedition, and illustrated 
by his conduct the process of a leap from the frying-pan into the fire. 
He appointed a meeting of his followers at Eltham for the purpose of 
surprising Henry, but the king observing the moves of the knight 
determined if possible to avoid being check-mated. His Majesty re¬ 
paired to Westminster, when Cobham, changing his tactics, fixed upon 
St. Giles’s Fields as the place of rendezvous. The king thought to 
himself “ Now w r e’ve got them there we’ll keep them there,” and shut 
the gates of the city. This was on the feast of the Epiphany, or Twelfth 
Day, 1414, and in the evening the Lord Mayor of London arrested 



Lord Mayor of the Period arresting a suspicious Twelfth-night Character. 


several very disreputable Twelfth-night characters. On the next day, 
a little after midnight, Henry went forth expecting to find 25,000 men 














































































































































































































22fi 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


assembled in St. Giles’s Fields, but lie met only eighty Lollards lolling 
about, expecting Sir John Oldcastle. Several of them were hanged on 
the charge of having intended to destroy king, lords, commons, church, 
state, and all the other sundries of which the constitution is composed, 
and to turn England into a federal republic, with Sir John Oldcastle as 
president. 

The idea of eighty enthusiasts meeting in a field near London to slice 
their countiy into republics, and make a bonfire of the crown, the scep¬ 
tre, the throne, and the other appointments of royalty, is really too ridi¬ 
culous to be entertained, though it is almost funny enough to be enter¬ 
taining. Such, nevertheless, was the alarm the Lollards had inspired, 
that every one suspected of Lollardism was condemned to forfeit his head 
first and his goods afterwards, though after taking a man in execution it 
was rather superfluous cruelty to take his property by the same process. 
Life, however, was held of so little account in those days that there 
was considered to be no such capital fun as capital punishment. 

Henry had scarcely worn the English crown for a year, when, in the 
spirit of an old clothesman, who delights in a plurality of hats, he thought 
the crown of France might furnish a graceful supplement to his own 
head-dress. He therefore sent in his claim to the French diadem, 
making out a title in right of Edward III.’s wife, who had no right at 
all, or if she had, it is clear that Henry V. had no right to the lady, 
whose heir was Edward Mortimer. France was in a wretched state 
when Henry put in his claim; for Paris was in one of its revolutionary 
fits, and intrigue was rampant in the royal family. The dauphin, Louis, 
was continually fighting with his mother, and insulting his father, while 
the Duke of Orleans and his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, were 
perpetually quarrelling. Each had his partisans, and those belonging 
to the latter were in the habit of declaring that an Orleans plum— 
alluding, of course, to the Duke’s vast fortune—was preferable to an 
entire dozen of Burgundy. In the mean time Paris was infested by a 
band of assassins, professing to be the friends of liberty, and wearing 
white hoods, which they forced on to everybody's head; and this act was 
no doubt the origin of the expression with reference to the hoodwinking 
of the people. 

Before proceeding to arm, Henry proposed a compromise. He 
demanded two millions in cash, and King Charles’s daughter, Catharine, 
in marriage. The latter offered the lady in full, but only a moiety of the 
money. This arrangement was scornfully rejected, and Henry held a 
council on the 17th of April, 1415, at which he announced his determi¬ 
nation to go “ over the water to Charley.” Having resolved upon what 
to do, the next question was how to do it; and the first difficulty that 
occurred was the refusal of his soldiers to stir a step without an advance 
ol three months’ wages. He first tried the Parliament, and got a good 
supply, which was further increased by borrowing from or robbing his 
subjects. Even this would not do, and recourse was had to the common 
but disgraceful practice of unpicking the crown for the purpose of 































































































































































CHAP. II.] 


EMBARKATION OF HENRY. 


227 


sending the jewels to the pawnbroker’s. A trusty officer was despatched 
to deposit with one ol the king’s relatives a brilliant, in the name of 
Bolinbroke. The news of the preparations being made in England, 
spread terror in France, for the distant roaring of the British Lion came 
across the main, with portentous fury. The French King, Charles, was 
utterly useless in the emergency—for he was a wretched imbecile—and 
several artful attempts w T ere made to get rid of his authority. Every 
now r and then he was made the subject of a commission of lunacy, as a 
pretext for placing power in the Dauphin's hands ; and that undutiful 
son, having turned his mother out of doors, seized the contents of the 
treasury, which made him at once master of the capital. At one time, 
while the pusillanimous Charles was lying at Arras, an attempt was 
made to burn him out, by setting fire to his lodgings ; but, having all 
the essential qualities of a perfect pump, he does not appear to have 
been of a combustible nature. He certainly was not of a very fiery 
disposition, and his enemies declared that he owed his escape from 
the flames to his being utterly incapable of enlightenment. Such w r as 
the King of France, and such the feeling entertained towards him by the 
majority of his subjects, when the English sovereign resolved on his 
aggressive enterprise. 

Henry left London on the 18th of June, 1415, and proceeded to 
Winchester, where he was met by another offer of a compromise. This 
he refused, and rudely pushing the deputation aside, he pressed on to 
Southampton. Here his fleet aw 7 aited him, but receiving news of a 
conspiracy to take his life, he, instead of putting off to sea, put off his 
departure. Sir Thomas Grey, the Lord Scroop, and the Earl of 
Cambridge were all in the plot; and the two latter having claimed the 
privilege of being tried by their peers, took very little by their motion, 
for they were condemned by a vote of wondrous unanimity. Having 
heard the heads of the treason, Henry cut off the heads of the 
traitors, and embarked, on the 10th of August, on board his ship the 
“Trinity.” The scene on the Southampton pier was animated and 
brilliant when the sovereign placed his foot upon the plank leading 
to the vessel that was to conduct him to the shores of his enemies. 
Gentle breezes were in attendance to waft him on his way, and 
Neptune, who is sometimes ruffled on these occasions, presented an 
even calmness that it was quite delightful to contemplate. An en¬ 
thusiastic crowd on the shore burst forth into occasional cheers, 
which were succeeded now and then by the faint sob of some senti¬ 
mental trooper, taking leave of the fond maid whose heart—and last 
quarter’s wages—he was carrying away with him. The civic authorities 
were, of course, active in their demonstrations of loyalty on this 
occasion; and the Mayor of Southampton, in backing to make one of 
his sycophantic bows, sent one of the attendants fairly over the bows of 
the vessel. With this exception, no accident or mischance marked the 
embarkation of Henry, which seemed to proceed under the most 
favourable auspices. 

q 2 


228 


COMIC HISTORY OK ENGLAND. 


1 BOOK IV. 

L. 


His fleet consisted of more than a thousand vessels, and some 
swans having come to look at it, he declared this little mark of 
cygnal attention to be a capital omen. We must request the reader 
to bear in mind, that though all the authorities justify us in announcing 
one thousand as the number of the ships constituting Henry’s fleet, we 
should not advise any one to believe the statement, who has not had an 
opportunity of counting the vessels. Either the ships in those days were 
very small, or Southampton harbour has been fearfully contracted by the 
contractors who have since undertaken to widen it. We have been ac¬ 
customed to place implicit faith in the rule of arithmetic, that “ a thou¬ 
sand into one won’t go !” nor do we feel disposed to alter our impression 
in favour of a thousand of Henry’s ships being able to go into Southamp 
ton harbour. We suspect that a hundred would have been nearer the 
mark, for posterity is greatly in the habit of putting on an 0, and really 
believing there is nothing in it. 

Whatever the numerical strength of Henry’s fleet may have been, it 
is certain that he entered the mouth of the Seme, which made no attempt 
to show its teeth, and he landed on the 13th of August, three miles 
from Harfleur, without any resistance. He severely deprecated all excesses 
against the peaceful inhabitants, but he nevertheless besieged the fortress 
of Harfleur with tremendous energy; so that his conduct towards the 
natives was a good deal like that of the individual who knocked another 
down stairs with numerous apologies for being under the painful neces 
sity of doing so. 

The siege was under the conduct of “ Master Giles,” the Wellington 
of the period. Master Giles must have been somewhat of a bungler, for 
he was not successful until he had lost nearly all his men, and been 
six and thirty days routing out the garrison. Even then the foe 
surrendered through being too ill to fight, rather than from having got 
much the worst of it. Henry’s army was also reduced to a pack of 
invalids, and his ships were turned into infirmaries for his soldiers. 
Though the troops were wretchedly indisposed, Henry himself was 
only sick of doing nothing, and he accordingly sent a challenge by a 
friend to the Dauphin of France, inviting him to a single combat. The 
feelings of Louis were not in correspondence with those of the English 
king, whose invitation to a hostile tete-a-tete was never answered. The 
friend sent by Henry was not by any means the sort of person to tempt 
the representative of Young France by a hostile meeting. The bearer 
of the challenge was, in fact, a walking pattern of what the Dauphin 
might expect to become in the event of his engaging in a duel. A 
countenance which looked more like a mug that had been cracked and 
rivetted in twenty places, was the letter of recommendation presented 
by Henry’s second. As the friend was evidently not a man to take a 
denial, Henry contented himself with scratching off a few hieroglyphics 
on a sheet of paper—to make believe that he was writing a note—and 
hastily seizing an envelope, lie sealed and delivered the delusive missive. 
Henry’s friend went away satisfied, with the full conviction that he was 


CHAP. II.] 


CHALLENGE BY HENRY 


229 


taking back an acceptance of his master’s challenge, but when the com 
munication came to be opened, the English king was indignant at the 
hoax that had been played upon him. 



Henry V. sends a friend to the Dauphin. 


Finding nimself foiled in an attempt to settle his dispute by single 
combat, Henry called over the muster-roll of his troops, which presented 
a frightful number of vacancies since the making up of his last army 
list. He had lost several hands from his first foot, and he was com¬ 
pelled to say to his adjutant, “ Really, if we go on at this rate we shall 
be compelled to notify that Nobudy is promoted, vice Everybody , killed, 
or retired.” 

His entire force having dwindled down to the mere shadow of its 
former self, he was advised to get home as speedily as possible. “No,” 
he replied, “ I have no notion of coming all this way for nothing, and I 
shall see a little more of this good land of France before I go back 
again.” The army, which was nearly all under the doctor’s hands, 
seemed, upon being drawn up in marching order, far fitter to go to bed 
than to go to battle. Every regiment required medical regimen, and 
when the soldiers should have been sitting with their feet in hot water 
and comforters round their throats, they were required, with a callous 
indifference to their state of health, to march towards Calais 
























































































































































































230 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK IV. 


The journey began on the Otli of October, when the French King 
and the Dauphin had a large force at Rouen, while the Constable of 
France was in front of the English, with an army consisting of the very 
pick of Picardy. In passing through Normandy Henry met with no 
opposition, but his movements were watched by a large force, which kept 
continually cutting off stragglers, or in military language, clipping the 
wings of his army. Those who lingered in the rear, or, as it were 
hung out behind like a piece of a pocket-handkerchief protruding from 
the skirts of the main body, were cut off with merciless alacrity. The 
English continued to be dreadfully ill, and were proper subjects for the 
Hotel des Invalides, but they nevertheless pursued their march with 
indomitable courage. In crossing the river Bresle, beyond Dieppe, they 
made a decided splash ; but the garrison of Eu interrupted them in their 
cold bath, though with very little effect, for the French leader was killed 
and his followers were driven back to the ramparts. On reaching the 
Somme the English army found both banks so strongly fortified, that 
had they resorted to the most desperate hazard, or played any other 
reckless game, breaking the banks would have been impossible. 

Henry consulted with his friends as to the best means of getting 
across, but nothing was suggested, except to tunnel under the banks 
and dive along the bottom of the stream ; but this was objected to for 
divers reasons. Henry kept marching up the left bank of the river, 
in the hope of finding a favourable opportunity to dash across; but 
every attempt terminated in making ducks and drakes of his brave 
soldiers. Wherever a chance appeared to present itself he tried it, but 
without success, for the river had been filled with stakes, though the 
extent of the stakes did not prevent him from carrying on the game as 
long as possible. At length, on reaching Nesle he hit the right nail on 
the head, for running across a temporary bridge near the spot, he found 
the accommodation passable. 

The Constable of France, on hearing what had occurred, retired to St. 
Pol, like a poltroon, and sent heralds to Henry, advising him to avoid 
a battle, for the French fully intended to give it him. The Constable 
then fell back upon Agincourt, in which direction the English armv 
prepared to follow him. On the 24th of October Henry and his 
soldiers came in sight of the enemy’s outposts, and their columns served 
as advertising columns to indicate their position. During the night it 
is said that the English played on their trumpets, so that the whole 
neighbourhood resounded with the noise; but as they were all very 
tired, and had gone to sleep, it is probable that the only music heard by 
the inhabitants emanated from the nasal organs of the slumbering 
soldiers. By the French the night was passed in noise and revelry ; 
but the English were chiefly absorbed in repose, or occupied in making 
their last wills and testaments. These were far more suitable employ¬ 
ments than the performance of those concerted pieces which would only 
have disconcerted the plans of their leaders. 

The moon, which on that occasion was up all night, enabled the 


CHAP. II.] STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY. 23J 

English officers to ascertain the quality of the ground that the French 
occupied. The Constable stuck the royal banner into the middle of the 
Calais road, an achievement which the muddy nature of the soil, 
rendered softer by the drizzly rain, prevented from being at all difficult. 
The French took the usual means of counteracting the effect of 
external wet by internal soaking. “ Every man,” says the chronicler, 
“ dydde drynke lyke a fyslie,” though the simile does not hold, for we 
never yet found one of the finny tribe who was given to the sort of 
liquor that the French were imbibing before Agincourt. They passed 
round the cup so rapidly that what with the clayey nature of the 
soil, and the whirl of excitement into which their heads were thrown, 
they found it almost impossible to preserve their respective equilibria. 
They floundered about in the most disgraceful manner, and there was 
“ many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip ” on that memorable occasion. 
In addition to the excesses of the table, they availed themselves of the 
resources of the multiplication table, by calculating the amount of the 
ransoms they should receive for the English king and the great barons, 
whom they made sure of capturing. Thus in the agreeable but 
delusive occupation of turning their imaginations into poultry-yards, 
and stocking them with ideal chickens that were never destined to be 
hatched, did the French pass the night before the battle. Still there 
was a melancholy mixed with the mirth in the minds of many, who in 
the midst of the general counting of the phantom pullets found sad 
thoughts to brood over. It so happened that there were scarcely any 
musical instruments among the French, and their horses, it was 
remarked, never once neighed during the night, which was thought to 
be ominous of bad, for if a dismal foreboding intruded, there was not 
even an animal to say “ neigh ” to it. Some of the older and more 
experienced officers were seized with gloomy anticipations, but they 
were either coughed, laughed, or clamoured down, and when the 
veteran Duke of Berri ventured to allude to Poictiers, on which 
occasion the French had been equally sanguine, he was tauntingly 
nick-named the Blackberry, for his sombre sentiments. To add to the 
discomfort of the troops, there was a deficiency of hay and straw for 
the use of the cavalry. The piece of ground where the horses had 
been taken in to bait was a perfect pool, in which the poor creatures 
could be watered, it is true, but could not enjoy any other refreshment. 
The earth had proved itself indeed a toper according to the song, and 
had moistened its clay to such a degree, that every one who came in 
contact with it, found himself placed on a most uncomfortable footing. 
However resolved the French might have been to make a stand on the 
day of battle, it was impossible for them to make any stand at all on the 
night preceding it. 

At early dawn Henry got up in excellent spirits, and declared himself 
ready to answer the communication of the French Constable, which he 
had received some time before, advising him to treat or re-treat, and 
which had hitherto remained un-responded to. A movement of astonish 


232 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


ment was evinced by his followers at the announcement of the English 
king's intention to reply to the message he had received; hut when he 
said, “ I shall trouble him with three lines, which may extend to three 
columns,” and proceeded to divide his army into that form, the gallant 
soldiers understood and cheered his meaning. The archers were placed 
in front, and every one of them had at least four strings to his bow, in 
the shape of a billhook, a hatchet, a hammer, and a long thick stake, 
in addition to his stock of arrows. 

Having made these preparations, Henry mounted a little grey pony, 
and reviewed his army. He wore his best Sunday helmet, of polished 
steel, which had received, expressly for the occasion, an extra leathering; 
and on the top of that he wore a crown of gold, richly set with jewels. 
In this head-gear, he presented such a dazzling spectacle to the enemy, 
that it would have been almost as difficult to take an aim at the sun 
itself as at the blazing and brilliant English leader. As he rode from 
rank to rank, he had an encouraging word for every soldier; and his 
familiar “ Ha, Briggs,” to one; his cheerful “What, Jones, is that you. 



Henry inspecting his troops before the Battle of Agincourt. 


mv boy? ” to another ; and his invigorating “ Up, Smith, and at ’em ?’ 
to a third, contributed greatly to increase the confidence of his men and 





















































































CHAP. II.] 


BATTLE OF AGINCOUKT. 


233 

strengthen their attachment to their general. “ As for me” he said, 
“you'll have to pay no ransom for me, as I've fully made up my mind 
to die or to conquer ” On passing one of the divisions he heard Walter 
Hungerford—the original proprietor of Hungerford stairs—regretting 
there were not more of them “ What do we want with more ? ” ex¬ 
claimed Henry, “ I would not have an extra man if you would give him 
me. If we are to fall, the fewer the better, and if we are to conquer I 
would not have one pair of additional hands to pick a single leaf of our 
laurels.” The French were at least six to one of the English, but the 
former were horridly out of condition on the night before the battle. 
They wore long coats of steel down to their knees, which gave them the 
look of auimated meat screens, and the armour they carried on their legs 
served to complete the resemblance. “ They wore a quantity of harness 
on the upper part of their bodies,” says M. Nicolas, but he does not 
tell us whether the harness consisted of horse collars, which by being 
grinned through would have enabled them to advance towards the foe 
with a smiling aspect. The ground was remarkably soft, and the French 
troops being exceedingly heavy they kept sticking in the mud at every 
step, while the ensigns, who had the additional weight of their flags, got 
planted in the ground like a row of standards. The horses were up to 
their knees in no time, and when they attempted to pull up they found 
the operation quite impossible. Henry had declared he would roll the 
enemy in the dust, but the wet had laid all the dust, and he must have 
rolled them in the mud if he had rolled them in anything. The French 
are said by a recent historian* to have been suffering under a “ moral 
vertigo,” but as the vertigo had been brought on by drinking during 
the previous night, the morality of the “ vertigo” will bear questioning. 
They had got themselves into a field between two woods, where they 
had no room to “ deploy” and they were tumbling over each other like 
a pack of cards, or a regiment of tin soldiers. Though they had im¬ 
bibed a large quantity of wine and spirits, the rain, which fell in torrents, 
only added water to what they had drunk, and threw them into what is 
technically termed a “ groggy” condition. Henry compared them to so 
many tumblers of rum-and-water, so comical was their appearance as 
they fell about in a state of soaked stupidity. To increase their con¬ 
fusion, the Constable of France was unable to keep order, for several 
young sprigs of French nobility were all tendering their advice, and thus 
there were not only cooks enough to spoil the broth, but to make a 
regular hash of it. 

At length, about the hour of noon, Henry gave the word to begin, by 
exclaiming “ Banners, advance ! ” and at the same moment Sir Thomas 
Erpingham, a grey old knight, who appears to have been a kind of 
military Pantaloon , threw his truncheon into the air with true panto¬ 
mimic activity. “ Now, strike ! ” exclaimed the veteran, as he performed 
this piece of buffoonery, and followed it up with the words “ Go it! ” 
.“At 'em again!” “Serve ’em right!” and “Give it ’em.” The French 


* Mac Farlane. Cabinet History, vol. v. page 21. 


234 


COMIC HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


fouglit bravely, and Messire Clignet, of Brabant, charged with twelve / 
hundred horse, exclaiming “Mountjoye, St. Denis! ” when down he fell, 
on the soft and slippery ground, like a horse on the wooden pavement. 
Everywhere the French cavalry cut the most eccentric capers; and even 
when there was an opportunity of advancing, the advantage seemed 
to slip from under them, for the ground was,as bad as ground glass to 
stand upon. The English archers rushed among the steel-clad knights, 
who were as stiff as so many pokers—though not one of them could stir 
—and they were thus caught in their own steel traps, or trappings. 
The Constable of France was killed, and the flower of the French 
chivalry was nipped in the bud, or, rather, experienced a blow of a fatal 
character. 

“ This is a very hard case, indeed,” roared one of the victims, as he 
pointed to his suit of steel, which rendered him incapable of fighting or 
running away, though he was quite ready for either. But the hardest 
part- of all was the softness of the ground, into which the French kept 
sinking so rapidly that they might as well have fought on the Goodwin 
Sands as on the field of Agincourt. The weight of their armour caused 
them to disappear every now and then, like the Light of All Nations, 
on the spot we have j’ist named, and an old French warrior—one of the 
heavy fathers of that day—was seen to subside so completely in the 
mud, that in a few minutes he had left only his hair apparent. The 
English, who were lightly clad, kept up wonderfully under the fatigues 
of the day, and some of them performed prodigies of valour. Henry 
himself seems to have acquitted himself in a style quite worthy of 
Shaw, or Pshaw, the Life Guardsman. His Majesty was charged by 
a hand of eighteen knights, whom it is said he overcame, but it is much 
more likely that finding themselves ready to sink into the earth, they 
were compelled to knock under.* 

Their cause was desperate, it was neck or nothing with many; but as 
they became immersed in the soil by degrees, it was neck first, and nothing 
shortly afterwards. The Duke of Alen^on made .a momentary effort to 
he vigorous, in spite of his steel petticoats, and gave Henry a blow on 
the head that broke off a bit of the crown which he had been wearing 
over his helmet. This embarras des chapeaux, or inconvenient super¬ 
fluity of hats, was a weakness Henry was subject to, and there was no 
harm in his being made to pay for it. The Duke of Alen^on had no 
sooner broken the king's crown than he received a fracture in his own, 
which proved fatal. The battle was now over, and the English began 
to secure prisoners, taking from each captive his cap, or hat, but it is 
to be presumed giving a ticket to each, by which all would get back 
their own helmets. Henry having taken it into his head that the battle 
was going to be renewed, ordered the prisoners to be killed; but he 
afterwards apologised for his mistake, though posterity has never been 
satisfied with the excuse he offered. As far as we have been able to 
learn the particulars of this atrocious blunder, it arose in the following 
manner. The priests of the English army—with a sort of instinctive 


CHAP. II.] 


PLUNDERING THE SLAIN. 


235 


tendency to taking care of themselves—were sitting amongst the baggage. 
Henry, hearing a noise among the reverend gentlemen, looked round, 



English Soldier securing Prisoner at the Battle of Agincourt. 


and found them apparently threatened with an attack from what he 
thought was a hostile force, but which turned out to be a few peasants, 
who were scrambling with the priests for a share of the luggage. This 
attempted appropriation of church property was resisted by a vigorous 
ecclesiastical clamour, which led Henry to believe there had been a rally 
among the foe, and that the priests were giving the signal. Had he 
been aware that they were crying out before they were hurt, there is 
every reason to believe that he would not have issued the mandate which 
has so much compromised bis otherwise fair average character. The 
French loss at the battle of Agincourt was quite incredible, but not a bit 
the less historical on that account, for if history were to reject all that 
cannot be believed, its dimensions would be fearfully crippled. 

The English, sinking under the weight of their booty, as well as the 
mud on their boots, marched towards Calais. Henry's army was reduced 
almost to a skeleton, but he used to say jocosely, that with that skeleton 
key he would find an opening anywhere. Though rich in conquest, he 
was short of cash, and as England was always the place for getting 












































236 


COMIC HTSTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


money, lie determined on hastening thither. The people received him 
tvith enthusiasm, and at Dover they rushed into the sea to carry him 
on shore, so that he literally came in on the shoulders of the people. 
Proud of this popular pickaback, he made a speech amid the general 
waving of hats, which was responded to by the gentle waving of the 
ocean. The tide, however, began to rise, when Henry cut short the 
proceedings of the meeting between himself and his subjects by ex¬ 
claiming, “ But on, my friends, to the shore, for this is not the place 
for dry discussion.” 

On his way up to town each city vied with the other in loyalty. 
Rochester contended with Canterbury, Chatham struggled with Graves¬ 
end, and Blackheatli entered into a single combat with Greenwich ; 
Deptford ran itself into debt, which it retains nominally to this day; 
and the Bricklayers presented their arms to Henry as he passed into 
the metropolis. In London he was met by the Lords and Commons, 
the mayor, aldermen, and citizens; but the sweetest music was that 
made by the wine as it poured down the streets, and caught a guttural 
sound as it turned into the gutters. Many a bottle of fine old crusted 
port was mulled by being thrown into the thoroughfare, and though it 
might have been good enough to have spoken for 'tself, it ran itself 
down through the highways with much energy. Nor was this enthusiasm 
confined to hollow words, for all the supplies which the king requested 
were freely voted him. It was only for Henry to ask and have, at this 
auspicious moment; and if, like some children, he had cried for the 
moon, it is not unlikely that his subjects, in the excess of their loyalty, 
would have promised to give it him. 

In the spring of the year 1416, London was enlivened by a visit 
from the Emperor Sigismund. He imparted considerable gaiety to 
the season, and his entry into the city gave occasion for a general 
holiday. His object was to endeavour to effect a coalition between the 
two rival popes, and to get the kings of France and England to malm 
it up if possible. He was followed by some French ambassadors who 
marred the harmony of the procession by looking daggers at the 
English nobles. Occasionally they proceeded from glances to gibes, 
which naturally led to pushes, that were only prevented from coming to 
blows by the sudden turning round of the emperor whenever he heard 
a disturbance going on amongst those who followed him. 

During Sigismund’s stay in town, the French besieged Harfleur, 
which was guarded by the Earl of Dorset and a most unhealthy 
garrison. Toothache, elephantiasis, and sciatica, had so reduced the 
spirit of the English force that the Duke of Bedford, the king’s 
brother, was sent to aid the Earl of Dorset, and the poor old pump 
was grateful for this timely succour. Bedford having put matters quite 
straight, returned to England, and Henry proposed a run over to 
Calais with his imperial visitor, Sigismund. Here a sort of Congress 
was held, at which Henry made himself so popular, that his rights to 
the French throne were partially recognised. France was at this 


CHAP. II.] 


SIEGE OF ROUEN 


2o7 

juncture in a very unpromising condition, for the royal family did 
nothing but quarrel and murder one another’s favourites. Isabella, the 
queen, lived in hostility with the king, who arrested several of his wife’s 
servants, and had one of them, whose name was Bois-Bourdon, sewn 
up in a leather-bag and thrown into the Seine, from which the notion 
of giving a servant the sack, on the occasion of his getting his 
discharge, no doubt takes its origin. 

The Dauphin John having died, he was succeeded by his brother 
Charles, a boy of sixteen, who was continually fighting with his own 
mother, and getting a good deal the worst of it. This state of things 
tempted Henry to bring an army into France in August, 1417, when, 
after the surrender of a few smaller places, he took Caen by assault, or 
rather by a good Caen pepper. In the ensuingyear he undertook several 
siege3 at once,and played with his artillery upon Cherbourg, Damfront, 
Louviers, and Pont de l’Arche as easily as the musician who plays simul¬ 
taneously on six different instruments. His next important undertaking 
was the siege of Rouen, before which he sat down, and having looked at it 
through his glass, he made up his mind that starving it out was the only 
method of taking it. The inhabitants held out for some time on their 
provisions, but these being exhausted, they began to devour all sorts of 
trash, that was never intended for culinary purposes. Soupe au shoe 
became a common dish, and though for a brief period they had mutton 
chop en papillotes they were at last reduced to the papillotes without 
the meat, but with their tremendous twists they of course could not be 
expected to make a satisfactory meal off curl-papers. They accordingly 
surrendered, and Henry, on the 16th of Jannary, 1419, entered Rouen, 
where ambassadors from the various factions in France were sent to 
him. He was, however, quite open to all, but decidedly influenced by 
none, and had a polite word for each, but a wink for those in his con 
fidence, as he administered the blarney to the various legates. At length 
it was agreed that he should have an interview with the king and queen 
of France and the Duke of Burgundy. 

The French sovereign was not presentable when the day came, for 
excessive indulgence in wine had reduced him to a state from which 
all the soda-water in the world could not, at that moment, have recovered 
him. Henry, therefore, met the queen, who was attended by her 
lovely daughter, the Princess Catharine, and her cousin of Burgundy, 
while the English king was supported by his brothers, Clarence and 
Gloucester. The meeting was exceedingly ceremonious, and was con¬ 
ducted a good deal in the style of a medley dance, comprising the 
minuet, the figure Pastorale in the first set of quadrilles, and Sir Roger 
de Coverley. At a signal announced by the striking up of some music, 
Henry advanced first, performing as it were the cavalier seul, when the 
Princess Catharine and the Queen, with the Duke of Burgundy between 
them also advanced, until all met in the centre. Henry bowed to the 
queen, and took her hand, and then did the same with the Princess 
Catharine, a movement resembling the celebrated chaine des dames — 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENG I AND. 


238 


[BOOK ITT. 


and Burgundy fell in gracefully’with what was going on hy an occa¬ 
sional balancez to complete the action of the second couple. 


'-k 



The Duke of Burgundy introducing Queen Isabella and his daughter to Ilenry V. 


This was the first occasion upon which Henry had seen his intended 
bride, and whether in earnest or in sham, he appeared to he at once 
struck by her surpassing beauty. He enacted the lover at first sight 
with a vigour that would have secured him a livelihood as a walking 
gentleman, had he lived in our own time, and been dependent for sup¬ 
port on his theatrical abilities. The whole day was spent in formalities, 
and Henry sat opposite to the princess till the close of the interview, 
looking unutterable things, for she was so far off that it would have 
been vain to have uttered any thing. In two days afterwards Henrj 
and ihe queen paid each other a second formal visit; hut the English 
king looked in vain for the young lady, who. like a true coquette , seems 











































































































































































CHAP. II.] 


MURDER OF BURGUNDY. . 


‘239 


to have kept away for the purpose of increasing the impatience of her 
lover. Her mother, with the tact of an old match-maker, tried to get 
the best possible terms from Henry; but with all his . affection, he 
would not stir from his resolution, to insist on having the possession of 
Normandy and a few other perquisites as the young lady’s dowry. 

The French queen pretended to take time to consider his proposal, 
and seven formal interviews were held ; but all' of them were of so dull, 
stately, and slow a character, that no progress was made at any one of 
them. The fact is, that Henry was being humbugged, and if he had 
suspected as much during the seven first meetings, he was convinced of 
it at that, which should have been the eighth, for on going to keep his 
appointment he found neither the queen, the duke, the princess, nor 
any of the attendants of either of them. All ceremony was at an end, 
the diplomatic quadrille parties were broken up, and Henry, disgusted 
at having been made to dance attendance for nothing at all, became so 
angry that his brain began a reel on its own account, and he set off to 
his own quarters in a galop. He ascertained the truth to be, that the 
Queen and Burgundy had made it up with the Dauphin, whom they 
had gone to join, and the precious trio having sworn eternal friendship 
to each other, added a clause to the affidavit for the purpose of swearing 
eternal hatred to all Englishmen. 

Tired of kicking his heels about to no purpose, Henry determined on 
practising some entirely new steps; the first of which was to advance 
upon Pontoise and chassez the inhabitants. He then pushed on towards 
Paris, when Burgundy, fearful of a rencontre, retired from St. Denis, 
where he had taken up his position. Henry again offered to treat, but 
in sending in the particulars of his demand he added Pontoise to the 
list of places he should require to be transferred to bis possession. 

The alliance between the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy was as 
hollow as the hollow beech tree rendered famous by a series of single 
knocks at the hands, or, rather, at the beak, of the woodpecker. After a 
little negociation, and a great deal of treachery Burgundy, in spite of 
the warnings of several of his servants, was induced to visit the Dauphin 
at Montereau. The duke went unarmed, on the assurance that he 
should return unharmed, and instead of his lie'met he wore a velvet 
cap, which one of his attendants declared was a wonderful proof of soft¬ 
headedness. Burgundy, on corking into the presence of the heir to the 
throne of France, bent his knee; when the President of Provence 
whispered something in the Dauphin’s ear, and both began winking fear¬ 
fully at a man with a battle-axe. The man with the battle-axe gave a 
significant nod, and dropped his weapon, as if by mistake, upon Bur¬ 
gundy ; when the Sire de Navailles, a friend of the Duke, pointing to 
the fearful dent the axe had made, exclaimed, “This is not a mere 

accident.” This was immediately obvious ; for several others rushed 

«/ 

upon poor Burgundy, who devoted his last breath to exclaiming to the 
Dauphin, “ You are an ass—ass—” for he died before he could get out 
the word ass—ass—in 





240 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


rBOOK IV 

t. 


Young Philip, the heir of Jean Sans-peur—or Jack Dreadnought, 
as we should have translated this nickname of the Duke of Burgundy— 
succeeded to his father’s estates, as well as becoming residuary legatee 
of the affections of most of his subjects. The Dauphin’s foul deed was 
execrated on all sides; for though the state of morals was low at the 
period of which we write, there was always a certain love of fair play 
inherent in the human character. The younger Burgundy was in a 
state of effervescence, and. though he kept bottled up for a short time, 
his rage soon spirted out with fearful vehemence. He entered into a 
coalition with Henry, who stipulated for the hand of the Princess Ca¬ 
tharine in possession, with the crown of France in reversion, and a few 
other trifling contingencies. In the year 1420, one day in the month 
of April—probably the first—the imbecile Charles, guided by Queen 
Isabella and the Duke of Burgundy, put his hand to the treaty. The 
unhappy monarch was in his usual state, when a pen having been thrust 
into his grasp, and while somebody held the document, somebody else 
directed the motion of the royal fingers. The treaty thus became dis¬ 
figured by a series of scratches and blots which were declared to be the 
king’s signature. An appendix to this document contained a fulsome 
panegyric on the English king, which wound up with a declaration of his 
fitness to succeed to the French crown, because “ he had a noble person 
and a pleasing countenance.” This shallow argument was intended to lead 
to the conclusion that he would treat his subjects handsomely; or that, at 
all events, should he ever reign over France, that his rule would not be 
without some very agreeable features. 

In May of the same year—1420—Plenry started for Troyes, where 
the young Duke of Burgundy, and the French royal family were 
sojourning. The English king was all impatience to see his bride, and 
he found her sitting with her papa and mamma in the church of Saint 
Peter. They had intended a little surprise for their illustrious visitor, 
and everything being ready beforehand, he was affianced on the spot to 
the lovely Catharine. They were regularly married on the 2nd of June, 
and some of the gay young nobles hoped there would be a series of balls, 
dinner parties, and tournaments, in celebration of the wedding : Henry, 
however, declared he would have “no fuss,” but that those who wanted 
to show their skill in jousting and tourneying might accompany him to 
Sens, which he purposed besieging on the second day after his marriage. 
He declined participating in the child’s play of a tournament when there 
was so much real work to be done, “ and as to feasting,” he exclaimed, 
“ let us give the people of Sens their whack, or, at all events, if we are 
to have a good blow-out, it must be by blowing the enemy out of the 
citadel.” He proceeded at once with his beautiful bride from Troyes, 
and soon reaching Sens, he in two days frightened the inhabitants out 
of their Senses. They surrendered, and he then advanced to Monte- 
reau, which he took by assault—or rather, as one of the merry old 
chroniclers hath it, “ which he took, not so much by assault as by a 
pepper.” After besieging a few other places in France, Henry, in con- 


CHAP. II. J QUEEN CATHERINE CROWNED—HENRY’S DEATH. 241 

junction with Charles, the French king, made a triumphal entry into 
Paris. The inhabitants of that city gave him an enthusiastic reception, 
for, like the populace in every period, they were delighted at anything 
in the shape of change, and paid the utmost respect to those from whom 
they had experienced the greatest injury. 

In January, 1421, Henry being very short of cash, determined on 
going home to England, which was even in those days the most liberal 
paymaster to popular favourites. Having with him a good-looking 
queen, his reception in his own country w 7 as most gratifying, for the old 
clap-trap about “ lovely woman ” was inherent from the earliest periods 
in the English character. This fascinating female was crowned at 
Westminster Abbey with tremendous pomp, and the happy couple went 
“ starring it ” about the country in a royal progress immediately after¬ 
wards. Their success in the provinces was immense ; but their pleasant 
engagements in their own country were soon brought to an end by the 
announcement that France was still in a state of turbulence, requiring 
the immediate presence of Henry in Paris. 

Having warmed his subjects’ hearts, he struck while the iron was hot, 
and took an aim at their pockets. Parliament was in a capital humour, 
and came out splendidly with pecuniary votes for a new expedition. 
He left the queen at Windsor Castle, where she shortly after gave birth 
to a son; and having landed a large but very miscellaneous army at 
Calais, Henry marched to Paris, to reinforce the Duke of Exeter, who 
had been left there as governor. The English were successful at all 
points, and Queen Catherine having joined her husband, they held their 
court at the Louvre, where they sat in their coronation robes, with their 
crowns on their heads, as naturally as if they had formed a part of “ the 
Royal Family at Home ” in Madame Tussaud’s far-famed collection of 
wax-work. 

In the midst of his victorious career in France, Henry had started 
off to the relief of a town invested by the Dauphin—an investment that 
was profitable to nobody. The English king had reached Corbeil, when 
he was taken suddenly ill, and throwing himself on a litter, he declared 
himself to be literally tired out with his exertions. Having been taken 
home to the neighbourhood of Vincennes, and put to bed, he summoned 
his brother, the Duke of Bedford, and some other nobles, to whom he 
recommended amity; but, above all, he advised them to continue the 
alliance with Burgundy, whose habit of sticking to his friends has given 
the name of Burgundy to the well-known pitch plaster. Having 
appointed his brothers Gloucester and Bedford regents, the one for 
England and the other for France, during the minority of his son, he 
seemed perfectly resigned ; but his attendants literally roared like a 
parcel of children, so that he was compelled te tell them that crying 
would do no good to anybody. He died on the 31st of August, 1422, 
aged thirty-four, having reigned ten years with some credit to himself, 
and in full, as far as conquest may be desirable, with advantage to his 
country. 


212 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


On the death of a king, it had been usual for the attendants to rush 
helter-skelter out of the room, and ransack the house of the deceased 
monarch, while his successor generally made the best of his way down 
to the treasury. Henry V. was an exception to the rule, for he had 
earned so much respect in his lifetime, that at his death there was no 
indecorum, hut a desire was manifested to give him the benefit of a 
decent, and indeed a magnificent, funeral. When a king of England 
had died abroad on previous occasions, his remains were seldom thought 
worthy of the expense of carriage to his own country ; but in this 
instance no outlay was considered too extravagant to bestow on the 
funeral procession of the sovereign. Hundreds of mutes followed, with 
that mute solemnity which is the origin of their name; and on this 
occasion there were hundreds of knights, all in the deepest mourning. 
Several esquires had their armour blackleaded, and their plumes dyed 
in ink, while the king of Scotland acted as chief mourner, and the widow 
of the deceased sovereign came in at the end of the gloomy retinue. 
On its arrival in England, when it drew near London, fifteen bishops 
popped on their pontifical attire, and ran to meet it; while the abbots, 
taking down their mitres from the hat-pegs in the halls of their houses, 
sallied forth to join the sad procession. The remains of the king were 
carried to Westminster Abbey, and consigned to the tomb with every 
token of esteem, and the reverence it had been customary to show to the 
rising sun alone, was on this occasion extended to the luminary that had 
just set in unusual glory. The queen, desirous of evincing her affection 
for such a prince, caused a silver-gilt statue as large as life to be placed 
on the top of his monument. This piece of extravagance was, however, 
before the invention of British Plate, or that “ perfect substitute for 
silver,” which is a perfect substitute in everything but value, strength, 
purity, appearance, and durability. 

In painting the character of Henry V., the English historians have 
used the most brilliant colours, while the French writers have thrown 
in some shades of the most Indian-inky blackness. The former have 
been lavish in the use of couleur cle rose , while the latter have selected 
the very darkest hues, and, indeed, produced a picture resembling those 
dingy profiles which give a hard outline of the features, but render it 
impossible for us to judge of the aspect or complexion of the original. 
It is for us to look at both sides, like the apparently inconsistent pen 
dulum, which, by constantly oscillating from right to left, becomes the 
instrument of furnishing a faithful record of the time. 

Henry V. was devoted to the happiness of his people; but be had 
sometimes an odd way of showing his attachment, by ill-using the few 
for the satisfaction of the many. Thus, he persecuted the Lollards in 
the most cruel manner, out of the purest condescension towards the clergy, 
who had got up a clamour against the sect alluded to. This obliging 
disposition may be carried too far, when it urges the commission of an 
injustice to one party, in order to favour another, and the persecution of 
the Lollards at the call of the clergy was a good deal like an acquiescence 


CHAP. II.] 


CHARACTER OF HENRY V 


243 


in a cry of “ throw him over” got up in the gallery of a theatre, against 
some unfortunate who may have incurred the momentary displeasure 
of a “ generous British audience.” 

The military exploits of Henry V. have been praised by English 
historians ; but the French writers have contrived to show, that even 
the battle of Agincourt was nothing more than a mistake, like the one 
which happened at Waterloo, about four centuries afterwards. “ He 
ought to have been conquered at Agincourt,” say the annalists of 
France; but we are quite content that his conduct was not precisely 
what it ought to have been—according to them—on this great occasion. 

Some praise has been given him for his tact in negotiating with the 
Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin at the same time; but we must 
confess that our notions of honour do not permit us to approve the act 
of temporising with two parties for the purpose of joining that which 
might prove to be the strongest He was brave beyond a doubt, but 
he was cruel in the treatment of some of the prisoners who fell into 
his hands, and we cannot give him the benefit of the presumption 
suggested by a French historian, that if he hanged a quantity of unfor¬ 
tunate captives, he had probably very good reasons of his own for 
doing so.* 

Among the other defects attributed to the character of Henry V. 
is a degree of sliabbiness towards the people in his employ, whom he 
is said to have paid very inadequately for their services. Considering, 
however, that the liberality of kings is often practised at the expense 
of the people, and that Henry was so crippled in his own means, that 
the crown jewels were, on one occasion, pawned, we have no right to 
blame him for refusing to reward his soldiers with what could only have 
been the proceeds of plunder. 

In person Henry V. was tall and majestic, but his neck was a little 
too long, which may have given him that supercilious air for which some 
of his biographers have censured him. In his social habits he 
resembled the celebrated Mynheer Yon Dunk of anti-intoxication 
notoriety, for Henry “ never got drunk ” even with success, which is of 
all things the most fatal to temperance. 

* Pour lex autres qui f'went executes dans le memo ferns fen ignore ies raisons 
mais iLesta jorcsumer, dr., <£r.—R apin, tom. iii., p. 504. 





244 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


CHAPTER THE THIRD 


HENRY THE SIXTH, SURNAMED OF WINDSOR. 


the Sixth was not 
out of his long frocks 
when he came to the 
throne, for he had 
not yet completed 
the ninth month of 
his little existence. 
Though he succeeded 
peacefully to the 
crown, he was in arms from 
the first hour of his reign; 
and though he was not born 
literally with a silver spoon 
in his mouth, he had one 
there on his accession to the 
throne, for he was being fed 
at the very moment that the 
news of his father’s death was 
announced in the royal nur¬ 
sery. It is easy to conceive 
the interesting proceedings 
that took place on its being 
proclaimed, that the child, 
then in the act of having its 
food, had become the King of 
A clean bib was instantly brought, and he was apostrophised 
as a little “ Kingsey Pingsey”—a “ Monarchy Ponarchy,”—and was 
addressed by many other of those titles of affectionate loyalty, which are 
to be found nowhere but in the nursery dialect. A parliament was sum¬ 
moned to meet in November, 1422, and the regency being a good thing, 
there commenced a desperate struggle as to who should be allowed to have 
and to hold the baby. The Duke of Gloucester claimed the post of 
nurse, in the absence of his elder brother the Duke of Bedford. The 
lords named the latter president of the council, but while he was away the 
former was permitted to act as his deputy, and, w r hat was more to 
Gloucester's purpose, he was allowed to receive the salary of £5,333 per 
annum. Having got the money and the power, Gloucester was not parti¬ 
cularly anxious to have the charge of the royal baby, who was accord 
ingly handed over to the Earl of Warwick, jointly with Henry Beaufort, 



England. 
























































CHAP. III.] 


ACCESSION OF HENRY VI. 


245 


Bishop of Winchester, a half-brother of Henry IV., who had also a high 
seat—convenient, by the way, for the infant king—in the council. 

This Beaufort was the second son of John of Gaunt, and founder 
of the illustrious family of the Beauforts, who derive their original 
nobility from an ancestor who was beau and fort —strong as well as 
good-looking. If aristocracy in these days were derivable from the 
same source, the handsome and brawny drayman might take his 
seat in the House of Lords, while ticket-porters, coalheavers, railway 
navigators, and other representatives of the physi ;al force party would 
constitute an extensive peerage, of what dramatic authors, when they 
write for the gallery, are in the habit of apostrophising as “ Nature's 
noblemen.” The Beauforts, besides the good looks and strength of 
their founder, had collateral claims to muscular eminence. The uncle 
of the first Beaufort was called John of Gaunt, from his gaunt or 
gigantic stature; and one of the family had been, in 1397, created 
Duke of Somerset, most likely on account of the somersets he was able 
to turn by sheer force of sinew 

We beg pardon for this slight digression, but as there are many 
who take a deep and reverential interest in everything appertaining to 
rank, it may be gratifying to them to know the precise origin of some 
of our most ancient and most aristocratic families. 

Let us then resume the thread of our history. Bedford was still in 
France, and, in the month of October, King Charles VI. expired at 
Paris. The Dauphin was at Auvergne, with a set of six or seven seedy 
followers, who could not muster the means of proclaiming him in a 
respectable manner. They hurried off altogether to a little road-side 
chapel, and having one banner among the whole lot, with the French 
arms upon it, they raised it amid feeble shouts of “ Long live the King,” 
aided by a few “ hurrahs” from some urchins on the exterior of the 
building. This farce having been performed, and the title given to it 
of “ The proclamation of Charles the VII,” the party repaired to lun¬ 
cheon at the King’s lodgings. Having come into a little money by the 
death of his father, he went with a few friends to Poictiers, where a 
coronation, upon a limited scale, was performed, at an expense exceed¬ 
ingly moderate. 

While this contemptible affair was going on in a French province, the 
Duke of Bedford was busy, in Paris, getting up a demonstration in 
favour of the infant Henry. Fealty was sworn towards the British 
baby in various great towns of France; and Bedford, anxious to cement 
the alliance with Burgundy, married the Duke’s sister, Anne; though 
it seems strange that he should have calculated upon a marriage as a 
source of harmony. He must have had a strong faith in wedded life, 
to have anticipated a good understanding as the effect of that which so 
frequently opens the door to perpetual discord. 

While Bedford was making strenuous exertions to promote the as¬ 
cendancy of the English in France, the nominal King of that country. 
Charles the VII., had given himself up to selfish indulgences. His 


246 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


energies were diluted in drink; but a few vigorous men, who were about 
him, forced him occasionally into the field, from which he always sneaked 
out on the first opportunity. He was compelled to engage in two or three 
actions, and was defeated in all, though he had the benefit of about 
seven thousand Scotch, under the command of the Earl of Buchan ; and 
threatened to cure his enemies of their hostility by administering a few 
doses of Buchan’s domestic medicine. After two or three reverses, 
Charles thought his army strong enough to attempt to relieve the town 
of Ivry, which, in the summer of 1424, was besieged by the Duke of 
Bedford. 

Charles’s force consisted of a strange mixture of Scotchmen, Italians, 
and Frenchmen, who were all continually giving way to their national preju¬ 
dices, and quarrelling in broken French, broken Italian, or broken Scotch, 
—which is a dialect something between a sneeze, a snore, and a howl, 
spiced with a dash of gutturalism, and mixed together in a whine of 
surpassing mournfulness. The French declared the Scotch were mer¬ 
cenaries, who had an 41 itching palm”; but the Scotch savagely replied, 
that “ they came to the scratch with a true itch for glory.” 

While the three parties were engaged in a vigorous self-assertion, and 
were loud in praise of their own valour, they caught a glimpse of the 
English force—and, halting in dismay, retreated without drawing a 
sword. The garrison of Ivry, which had been waiting the approach of 
its friends, who were to do such wonders, and had been watching the 
scene with intense anxiety from the battlements, could only murmur out 
the w T ords “ pitiful humbugs,” and surrender at discretion. 

By some lucky chance—or, as other historians have it, by the revolt 
of the inhabitants—Charles and his mongrel army had got possession of 
the town of Verneuil, which was a very strong position. They had scarcely 
got snugly in, when the Duke of Bedford presented himself before the 
walls, and a council was instantly held, to consider how they should get 
out again. Everybody talked at once, and a mixed jargon of Scotch and 
French, flavoured occasionally with a little Italian sauce, was the only 
result of the deliberation of the gallant army. At length, by common 
consent., they ran away, preferring to tight in an open field, if they must 
fight at all—for there would then be more margin for escape, or latitude 
for bolting, in the event of tlieir getting the worst of it. 

So rapid was their desertion of the town, that they left behind them 
all their luggage, which was perhaps a wise precaution, for they were 
thus enabled to run the faster, in case of having to execute a retreat, 
which was one of the military manoeuvres in which they had had the 
most experience. 

The two armies were now in presence of each other, and on both 
sides the feeling was like that of the young lady who “ wondered when 
them figures was a going to move,” at an exhibition of wax-work. The 
Earl of Douglas, with Scotch caution, wanted to wait, but the Count of 
Narbonne, with French impetuosity, was for making a beginning, and 
rushed forward, shouting “ Mountjoye St Denis !”■—which w T as synony- 


CHAP, in.] 


JACQUELINE OF H AIN AULT. 


247 


mous, in those days, with “ Go it!” in ours. The whole line followed, 
helter-skelter and pell-mell, so that when they got up to the stakes the 
English had run into the ground—to show, perhaps, they had a stake in 
the country—the French were out of breath, out of sorts, and out of order. 
They were miserably panting, but not panting for glory, and the punches 
in the ribs they got from the English, made them roar out like so many 
paviours in full work—as they always are—down Fleet Street. Their 
temporary want of wind was soon changed into permanent breathlessness, 
and thus, in spite of all their boasting, there was a miserable end to 
their puffing. 

The battle was very severe, for they had been “ at it ” for three hours. 
Douglas, it being before the time when “ the blood of Douglas could pro¬ 
tect itself,’’ was slain. Buchan, who had been taunted by his allies with 
being nothing better than a buccaneer, also fell, and the French lost a 
countless number of Counts, as well as a host of miscellaneous soldiers. 
The Italians, who had boastingly called themselves the Italian cream of 
the army, turned out to be the merest milk-sops, and kept as much out 
of harm’s way as possible. The Duke of Bedford ordered the heads of 
several prisoners to be cut off, and the Bedford executions were so 
numerous, that the headsman’s axe got the name of “the Bedford level.” 

The battle of Yerneuil had been fought on the 17th of August, 1424, 
and Charles the Seventh seemed on the eve of bankruptcy, both in cash 
and credit. His money was all gone, and his friends had—of course— 
gone after it. Fortune, however, favoured him, at the expense of his 
enemies, for they began to disagree with each other. To say that there 
was a quarrel is equivalent to saying that there was a woman in the 
case, and the woman was—upon this occasion—the celebrated Jacque¬ 
line of Hainault. This prize specimen of a virago was the daughter of 
the Count of Hainault, and the niece of John the Merciless, from whom 
she inherited all that coarse unwomanly bluster, which, in one of the 
fair sex, is called by courtesy “ a proper spirit.” She had been married 
to a little bit of a boy of fifteen, her cousin-german and her godson,— 
an urchin commonly known as John Duke of Brabant. Jacqueline, who 
was beautiful and bold, was no match; or, rather, was more than a 
match—for a stripling not half way through his teens at the time of his 
marriage. The puny lad had got into bad company, and was surrounded 
by a set of low favourites. The masculine Jacqueline was not exactly the 
woman to submit tamely to any injury, and taking offence at one of her 
boy-husband’s friends, she had him murdered. 

This stamped her as that most objectionable of characters, an acknow¬ 
ledged heroine, and she became “ a woman of strong mind” in all the 
chronicles of the period. Her liliputian husband was persuaded to 
retaliate by dismissing all his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, upon which Jacque¬ 
line became a greater vixen than ever. 

After a powerful scene of domestic pantomime, in which she alter¬ 
nately tore her hair and that of her husband, she declared her 
determination to leave him. “ A thplendid riddanthe.” lisped the 


248 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[LOOK IV. 


aggravating boy; upon which Jacqueline, making another rush at his 
hair, and taking a large lock of it in her hands—not, howewer, to be 
preserved as a pledge of affection—she hurried off to Valenciennes, and 
thence to Calais. The runaway next made for England, where she 
remained on a visit with Henry’s queen, Catherine, at Windsor Castle. 
Here she soon began flirting with the king’s brother, the Duke of 
Gloucester, and though the poor man was not deeply in love with her, 
he was persuaded to agree to a marriage. 

Jacqueline being already the wife of another, was compelled to seek 
a dispensation from Pope Martin V., but he looked at the matter with 
an unfavourable eye when Jacqueline making a coarse allusion to her 
own eye, and a female branch of the Martin family, despatched a 
messenger to the opposition pope, the thirteenth Benedict. Being a 
Benedict he could not consistently oppose a marriage, and he granted 
the dispensation immediately. 

Gloucester, who had determined on making his new wife profitable, if 
she could not be pleasant, claimed without delay her possessions in Hain- 
ault, Holland, and elsewhere, which she had inherited. It was a few 
weeks after the battle ofVerneuil, which we have recently described, that 
Gloucester and his considerably better-half—in quantity if not in quality 
—started off with a large army to take possession of Hainault. They 
soon frightened the inhabitants of the capital, of which they made 
themselves master and mistress, without any previous warning, Philip, 
Duke of Burgundy, the uncle of the boy-Duke of Brabant, was very 
angiy at the lad’s wife coming to cheat the boy, as it were, out of his 
property. After a good deal of hard struggling to keep his position 
at Hainault, Gloucester came to the determination that his wife was 
not worth the bother she occasioned him, and he accordingly w r ent 
home, leaving her to defend herself as well as she could, when she 
was instantly besieged, given up to the Duke of Burgundy, by the 
inhabitants of Mons, and sent to Ghent in close imprisonment. 

Neither bolts nor bars could restrain the impetuosity of this 
tremendous woman, who burst from her prison, and putting on male 
attire, which became her much better than her own, she escaped into 
Holland. It was not to be expected that a fighting woman would 
remain very long without followers, and the “ Hainault Slasher ”—as 
Jacqueline might justly be called—soon mustered a strong party in her 
favour. The novelty of going to battle with a woman for a leader told 
well at first, but as the attraction wore off her soldiers dwindled away 
by degrees, until her forces became utterly insignificant. Even her 
chosen Gloucester took advantage of her absence to treat his marriage 
as a nullity, and to unite himself with Miss Eleanor, the daughter of 
Lord Cobharn. The desertion of the husband she preferred was in 
some degree compensated by the death of the husband she hated, for 
the boy-Duke of Brabant lived only until April, 1427, and thus, by the 
abandonment of one, and the decease of the other, she became doubly 
dowagered. Still she continued to struggle with the Duke of 


CHAP. III.] SIEGE OF ORLEANS—JOAN OF ARC. 249 

Burgundy, but she was now advancing in years, and her efforts became 
perfectly old-womanish. 

The summer of 1428 was the means of bringing her to her senses, 
for she was severely drubbed by the Duke, and finally quelled in a 
career as unbecoming to her age and sex as it was inimical to her 
interest. She agreed to recognise Burgundy as direct heir, at her 
death, to all she possessed, and he made her hand over everything at 
once, which was a capital plan for making sure of his inheritance. 

We have, however, devoted to the Hainault vixen more time and 
space than she is perhaps worth, but we have thought it better to 
dispose of her off-hand, to prevent so disagreeable a person from again 
intruding herself on the pages of our history. 

From the time the English took possession of Paris, Orleans, like a 
ripe and tempting Orleans plum, had been the object of their desires. 
The French knew the importance of the place, and had concentrated 
within it ammunition, eatables, and stores of every description. Barrels 
of beef, and barrels of gunpowder—hams and jams—wine for the 
garrison and grape for the foe—preserves for themselves and destruc¬ 
tives for their enemies, were laid up in abundance in the city of Orleans. 
In addition to all these articles, enormous supplies of corn had been 
poured into the place, which contained something superior even to the 
corn, for it held all the flower of the French nobility. Kegardless of 
these facts, the Earl of Salisbury began to attack the city, and the 
English commenced an attempt to scale the walls, but having some 
missiles thrown at them from above, those engaged in the scale soon 
lost their balance. Salisbury, nevertheless, persevered by attacking 
some other point; but the garrison determined to pay him off, and 
having recourse to their shells, they shelled out with such effect as to 
kill the English leader. Salisbury was succeeded by the Earl of Suffolk, 
who employed the winter of 1428 in cutting trenches round the 
city, and throwing up redoubts, which rendered him very redoubtable. 

Orleans was thus cut off from the chance of further supplies, and the 
awful words, “ When that s all gone you ’ll have no more,” began to be 
whispered into the ears of the inhabitants. Charles himself was for 
surrendering, and several mealy-mouthed courtiers, who feared they 
should soon be without a meal for their mouths, seconded the king in 
his pusillanimous project. Others were for holding out instead of 
giving in, and Charles’s fortune seemed to be at the lowest ebb, when 
a letter arrived from one of the posts to announce the prospect of an 
early delivery. This early delivery was not, however, to be looked for 
bv the mail, but by that illustrious female, Joan of Arc, familiarly known 
as the Maid of Orleans. 

Charles, who had little faith in the power of a female to get one out of 
a scrape, and who believed the tendency of the interference of the sex to be 
a good deal the other way, burst out into a fit of immoderate laughter at 
hearing the news that had been brought to him. “Never laughed so much 
in my life,” occasionally ejaculated the French king, as the tears rolled 


250 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


down his cheeks, in double-distilled drops of the extract of merriment. 
He, nevertheless, granted her permission to give him a look-in when she 
was coming that way ; but it was more from curiosity, or to have another 
hearty laugh at the Maid’s expense, that he consented to an interview. 
Joan arrived, with her squires and four servants; but even this retinue, 
small as it was, must have been larger than her narrow circumstances 
could have fairly warranted. The two squires could have got in the 
service of two knights a certain sum per day, and the four servants, at 
a time when war was being waged, might have obtained better wages 
than a poor and friendless girl could possibly have paid to them. These, 
or similar reflections, occurred to some of the people about the court of 
Charles, who, considering that Joan must be an imposter, advised his 
Majesty to have nothing to do with her. At all events, it was deemed 
as well that her previous history should be known ; and as the reader 
may wish for the character of the Maid, before permitting her to engage 
even his attention, we will, at once, say what we know concerning her 

Joan was the child of a brace of peasants, in a wild and hilly district of 
Lorraine, on the borders of Champagne, a country of which she seems 
in a great degree to have imbibed the qualities. Living in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the sparkling and effervescing Champagne, her head became 
turned, or, at least, began to be filled with those bold aspirations which the 
genius loci might have had some share in engendering. It is undeniable 
that when a mere child, she delighted to roam about for the purpose of 
drinking at the great fountain of inspiration, which Champagne so abund¬ 
antly supplies, and she would often go on until she heard voices—or a 
sort of singing in her ears—which told her she was destined for great 
achievements. Her birth-place was a short distance from the town of 
Vaucouleurs, at a little hamlet called Domremy, into which faction and 
dissatisfaction had so far forced their way, that the children used to pelt 
the children of the next village with mud and stones, on account of their 
political differences. Joan’s attachment to her native soil caused her to 
be among the foremost of those who took up earth by liandfulls, and 
threw each other’s birth-place in each other’s faces. Being in the habit 
of holding horses at a watering-house on the Lorraine road, she frequently 
heard the conversations of the waggoners, and, amid their “ Gee-wos !” 
the woes of France were sometimes spoken of. Invisible-voices now 
began to tell her that she was destined to set everything to-rights, and 
to be her country’s deliverer. 

Though her father called it “ all stuff and nonsense,” she had talked 
over an old uncle, a cartwriglit at Vaucouleurs, whom she persuaded 
of her fitness to repair the common weal, and the honest Cartwright 
promised to assist her in putting a spoke into it. The brace of peasants 
were annoyed at the very high-flown notions of their offspring, and 
when she talked of going to King Charles, they asked her where the 
money was to come from for the purposes of her journey. Joan 
immediately had a convenient dream, appointing the governor of Vau¬ 
couleurs, one Sire de Baudricourt, her banker on this occasion. 


CHAP. III.] INTERVIEW OF JOAN OF ARC WITH CHARLES. 251 

Under the guidance of her uncle, she visited the Sire, and told him 
the high honour her visions had awarded him. in naming him treasurer 
to her contemplated expedition. The Sire, not at all eager to become a 
banker on such unprofitable terms, refused at first to hear her story, or 
indeed to allow her to open an account, so that the first check she 
received was somewhat discouraging. He suggested that she should be 
sent home to her father with a strong recommendation to him to take a 
rod and whip all the rliodomontade completely out of her. Joan, 
however, cared little for what might be in pickle for herself while she 
was bent on preserving her country. She went constantly to the house 
of the Sire de Baudricourt, but he never allowed her to be let in, for 
he verily believed it would only have been opening the door to 
imposition. 

At length, more out of pity to his hall-porter than from any other 
motive, the Governor agreed to see that troublesome young woman who 
had given no peace to his bell since the first day of her arrival at 
Vaucouleurs. After the interview, Baudricourt came to the conclusion 
that Joan was crazed ; but she declared she would walk herself literally 
off her legs, until they were worn down to the stump, if the Sire 
refused to stump up for the expenses of the journey. Some of the 
people beginning to believe the maid’s story, she was enabled to get 
credit in Vaucouleurs for a few trappings as well as for a horse, and at 
the same time six donkeys, in the shape of two squires and four 
servants, consented to follow her. 

On the 15th of February, 1429, the Maid began her journey, in the 
course of which her companions frequently came to the conclusion that 
she was a humbug, and on arriving at a precipice they often threatened 
to throw her over. At length, all difficulties being surmounted, she 
arrived at Chinon, near Orleans, where Charles was residing. “ I 
won’t see her,” cried the king, upon hearing she had come; I am not 
going to be bored to death by a female fanatic. A man who believes 
himself to be inspired is bad enough, but there is not a greater plague 
on earth than a woman-prophet.” At length, after being pestered for 
three days, he consented to grant an interview to Joan, who stood 
unabashed by the sneers of the courtiers. Every word that flowed 
from her lips had the effect of curling fluid on the lips of those who 
listened. Some would have coughed her down, others began to crow 
over her, and the scene was a good deal like the House of Commons 
during the speech of an unpopular member, when Charles, who was a 
good deal struck by the assurance of the Maid, took her aside to have a 
little quiet talk with her. 

“ Well, my good woman,” he observed. “ what is all this ? Let me 
know your views as briefly as possible.” Joan explained that her views 
consisted of magnificent visions, but Charles declared them to be mere 
jack-o’-lanterns of the brain, which were not worth attending to. Never¬ 
theless, the earnestness of her manner had its effect, and the king sent 
her to Poictiers, where there was a learned university, and, though Joan 


252 


COMIC HISIORY OF ENGLAND 


[KOOK IV 


was ratlier averse to the fellows, she allowed them to question her. 
Some of them began to assail her with their ponderous learning, but 
she cut them short by acknowledging that she did not know a great A 
or a little a from a bouncing B. She declared herself, however, ready 
to fight, and the learned men, who were not anxious for a contest with 
the Maid in her own style, pronounced a favourable opinion on her pre¬ 
tensions. To raise the siege of Orleans, and take the Dauphin to be 
crowned at Rheims, were the feats she undertook to perform. As one 
trial would prove the fact, Charles consented to grant it. The soldiers, 
however, refused to follow her until they had seen how she would manage 
a horse, and they consequently all stood round her while she went 
through a few scenes in the circle. One of them, who acted as a kind 
of clown to the ring, put a lance into her hand, which she wielded with 
great dexterity, while she was still in the performance of her rapid act 
of horsemanship. 

Joan having passed her examination with success, was invested with 
the rank of a general officer. In spite of her masculine undertaking, 
there was still enough of the woman in her disposition to induce her to 
be very particular in ordering her own armour and accoutrements. 
She had herself measured for an entirely new suit of polished metal, her 
banner was white, picked out with gold, and her horse was as white as 
milk when properly chalked for metropolitan consumption. The Maid 
looked exceedingly well when made up, and people flocked round her 
with intense curiosity; for if even the man in brass at the Lord Mayor’s 
Show will attract a mob, a woman regularly blocked in by block tin 
was a novelty that every one would be sure to run after. Full of enthu¬ 
siasm, she started off to the relief of Orleans, and the garrison, 
encouraged by her approach, sallied out upon the besiegers with unusual 
vigour, exclaiming “ The Maid is come! ” and the result realised the old 
saying that “ where there s a will, there’s a way,” or in the Latin 
proverb, possunt (they can) qui (who) videntur (seem) posse (to be able). 

With the aid of the posse comitatus the object was achieved, and it 
may, perhaps, have happened that the superstitious fears of the English 
had much to do with the result of the battle. They declared that she 
was a witch, and some of them pretended to have seen her looking at 
them with great saucer eyes, which was, in those days, a test of sorcery 
The sentinels, at night, got so nervous, that they used to be startled by 
their own shadows in the moon, and would run away, declaring that they 
were pursued by black figures stretched on the ground, from which there 
was no escaping. Others declared the stars were all out of order, and 
that they heard the band of Orion playing, out of tune, at midnight. 
Some declared they had seen a horse galloping along the Milky Way, 
and they inferred that Joan of Arc sent her steed along it at full speed 
to keep up his milky whiteness. 

The English army had been completely panic-struck by the successes 
of Joan, which were owing nearly equally to the zeal she inspired in her 
friends and to the superstition of her enemies. She caused a letter to 


CHAP. III.] 


SIEGE OF ORLEANS-JOAN OF ARC. 


253 


be written to the latter, in her name, strongly advising them to “ give 
it up,” and now she determined to give them a bit of a speech from the 
ramparts of Orleans. Taking her place on the top of a ladder, resting 
against a high wall, she advised them to “ be off; ” that it was “ no use ; ” 
they were “only wasting their time there,” and recommended that if they 
had business elsewhere they had better go and attend to it. Sir William 
Gladesdale, an English leader, rose to reply, amid cries of “ Down, 
down!” “Off, off! ” “ Hear him! ” “Oh, oh! ” and the usual ejaculations 
which a difference of opinion in a crowd has always elicited. As soon 
as Sir William could obtain a hearing, he was understood to advise the 
Maid to “go home and take care of her cows; ” upon which Joan cleverly 
replied, that if “ a calf were an object of care as well as a cow, he, Sir 
William Gladesdale, ought to be placed at once in safe keeping.” The 
knight, finding the laugh against him, sat down without another word, 
and Joan became more popular than ever after this little incident. 

It was part of the plan of the Maid to work upon the imagination of 
the foe, and an amanuensis was employed to write another threatening 
letter, in her name, to the English soldiers. The communication was 
thrown into the midst of them, and Joan, being anxious to know what 
effect it produced, stood on the ramparts to overhear what they said to 
it. “Listeners never hear any good of themselves,” and the Maid had 
the mortification of listening to some fearful abuse of herself; which, 
perhaps, served her right, for her behaviour was, to say the least of it, 
exceedingly un-ladylike. Vanity became one of her most powerful 
incentives, and she took upon herself to disagree with the Governor of 
Orleans, the great captains, and all the military authorities, on points of 
military tactics. Joan was, in fact, a very impracticable person, but it 
was necessary to let her have her way to a considerable extent, on 
account of her immense popularity with the soldiers. She insisted on 
making an attack which was considered very premature, and while 
leading it in person she got knocked over into a ditch by a dart, which 
set her off crying very bitterly. A valiant knight picked her up, and 
placed her in the rear, consoling her by saying, “ There, there—you re 
not a great deal hurt. Come, come, dry your eyes. Don’t cry, 
there’s a good girl,” and other words of encouragement. Joan feeling 
that it would not do for a heroine to be found roaring and whimpering 
at the first scratch she received, soon recovered her self-possession, and 
was soon at the ditch again, but on this occasion it was less for the 
purpose of fighting herself than of urging on others to battle. 

The English, though they did not know whether Joan was a witch or 
a what, were nevertheless ready to fight her on a fair field, if she would 
give them the opportunity. Her voices had not, however, given her the 
word of command, and she found it advisable to put a poultice on her 
neck, which rendered it necessary that she should keep for some days 
as quiet as possible. Her voices were often exceedingly considerate in 
refraining from advising her to go to battle when she might have got 
the worst of it. In this instance they were accommodating enough to 


254 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


give her the opportunity of nursing her neck, for at least a limited 
period. The English waited a little time for the Maid, expecting that 
she would prove herself a “ maid of all work,” hy venturing to go single- 
handed into a very difficult place ; but, as she did not make the attempt, 
they retired with flying colours. These colours, had they been war¬ 
ranted not to run, might never have left Orleans, but on the 8th of 
May, 1429, the siege was raised, and the reputation of the English army 
considerably lowered. 

On the strength of this event, Joan went to meet King Charles, who 
received her very affably, and the courtiers proposed inviting her to a 
public dinner. This honour she politely declined, for—like the cele¬ 
brated Drummond—she was “ averse to humbug of any description,” but 
that which she had made for her own use, and after-dinner speeches were 
matters she held in utter abhorrence. She objected strongly to that 
festive foolery which induces people, who never met before, to express 
hopes that they may often meet again, and which is the source of at 
least twenty proudest moments of about as many existences. Joan, 
therefore, urged her previous engagements as an excuse for going out 
nowhere, for she felt assured that if she encouraged a spirit of 
jolly-dogism among the troops, they would soon become neglectful of all 
their duties. 

Charles, urged by the example of Joan, determined to do a little sol¬ 
diering himself, and had his armour taken out of his box, the rust 
rubbed off, the shoulder-straps lengthened, the leggings let down, the 
breastplate let out, and other alterations made, to adapt it to the change 
in his figure since he had last worn his martial trappings. Though he 
took the field, it was in the capacity of an amateur, for his modesty—or 
some other feeling—kept him constantly in the background, and after 
the battle of Patay, which was fought and won by the French, the cries 
of “Where is Charles? What’s become of the king?” were loud and 
general. The Maid found him reposing on his laurels, or rather under 
them, for he had concealed himself in a thick hedge of evergreens, from 
which he declined to emerge, until his question of “ Is it all right?” had 
received from Joan’s lips a satisfactory answer. The object of her visit 
was to persuade him to accompany her to Rheims, to celebrate his coro¬ 
nation in the cathedral of that city. “ It’s not a bad idea,” said Charles, 
“ but premature, I’m afraid, and so at present we will not think of it.” 
Joan would, however, take no refusal. On the 15th July, 1429, the 
French king made his solemn entrance into that city. He was crowned 
two days after, and though not one of the peers of France were present 
at the ceremony, it went off with quite as much spirit as any one might 
venture to anticipate. 

Philip, the Duke of Burgundy, declined an invitation from the Maid, 
who pointed out to him the folly of fighting against his own king, when, 
if he wanted war, the Turks were always ready to fight or be fought, to 
have their heads cut off, or oblige any one else by making the thing 
reciprocal. The Duke of Burgundy still kept aloof, but Joan continued 


CHAP. III.] MEETING OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH AT SENLIS. 255 

to be successful without his assistance, and took several towns, chiefly 
from the readiness with which they were given up to her. Many of tho 
people looked upon her as something preternatural, and they even 
fancied her white banner was always surrounded by butterflies, though 
truth compels us to state that these fancied butterflies were probably 
harvest-bugs, which, at about the period of the year when the phenome¬ 
non was supposed to have been seen, were most likely to be fluttering 
blindly and blunderingly about the Maid's standard. Many of the French 
officers, jealous of her success, attempted to malign her character. 
No tiger could have stood up for his respectability more furiously than 
Joan defended her reputation; and, indeed, she made so much fuss, to 
vindicate her fair fame, that we might have suspected her of impropriety, 
had not all historians agreed in coming to an opposite conclusion. It 
was evident that Joan, having made one or two lucky hits, was anxious 
to back out before she damaged her reputation by failure. When asked 
what she would do if allowed to retire, she declared she would return and 
tend her sheep; nor did the cruel sarcasm of “ Oh, yes, with a hook !” 
—which some courtier would throw in—divert her at all from her 
humble purpose. Having the rank of a General, she might perhaps 
have claimed the right to sell out or retire on half-pay, but she was 
anxious to return to her lowing herds, which caused Charles to say that 
for her to go and herd with anything so low, would he indeed ridiculous. 
Her voices, however, began to confuse her, and perhaps to talk more 
than one at a time, as well as to say different things; for on one day 
she would speak of resuming her humble occupations, and on another 
day would make preparations for smashing the English. 

Fortune seemed to have deserted the English in France, and Bedford, 
the Regent—like others of his countrymen, when they found their num¬ 
bers inferior to those of the foe—had the coolness to propose settling 
the dispute by single combat. This ingenious device is like that of the 
gamester who has but a single pound, which he proposes to stake against 
the pound of him who has a hundred more, with the understanding that 
if the party who makes the proposition shall win, he shall walk off with 
all that belongs to his antagonist. Charles was rude enough to make no 
reply to this offer, but about the middle of August, 1429, the English 
and French armies found themselves very unexpectedly in sight of each 
other, near Senlis. How they came to such close quarters no one 
seemed to know; but it is agreed on all hands, that both sides would 
have been very glad to get back again. Neither would venture to begin, 
and Charles requested to know what Joan of Arc’s voices had to say upon 
such an important occasion. The Maid had unfortunately lost whatever 
voice she might have had, and could find nothing at all to say for herself. 
The king was eager to know whether his army might commence the 
attack, but Joan’s voices said not a word, and as their silence was not of 
the sort which Charles considered capable of giving consent, he did not 
permit any assault to be begun by his soldiers. After looking at each 
other during three entire days, each army marched off the field by its 


256 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


own road, and nothing had taken place beyond the interchange of an 
occasional “ Now then, stupid—what are you staring at?” between the 
advanced guards of either army. 

Though our business, as an historian, has taken us a good deal abroad, 
we must now return home, lest, in our absence, the thread of our narra¬ 
tive should have got into such a state of entanglement, as to cause our¬ 
selves and our readers difficulty in the necessary process of unravelling 
it. The sixth of November, 1429, was set apart for the coronation of 
the baby king, at Westminster; and, in a spirit worthy of the rising 
generation of the present day, his infant majesty insisted on the abolition 
of the protectorship. The notion that he could take care of himself had 
got possession of the royal mind; but the sequel of his reign afforded 
bitter proof of the extent of the fallacy. In 1430, he embarked for 
France, but the privy purse was again in such a disgraceful state, that 
the king had not the means of paying for his journey. The usual 
humiliating step was taken of sending the crown to the pawnbroker. 
We may here take occasion to remark, that though we frequently hear 
of the crown being put in pledge, we have no record of its being ever 
taken regularly and honestly out again. There can be little doubt that 
the people were unscrupulously taxed to rescue the regal diadem, which 
was no sooner redeemed than royal extravagance, or necessity, placed it 
again in its humiliating position. Had the same crown been transmitted 
regularly from hand to hand—or, rather, from head to head—it would 
have been perforated through and through by the multiplicity of tickets 
that from time to time have been pinned on to it. 

On this occasion, the jewels went to the pawnbroker’s, as well as the 
crown, so that the regalia were huddled together as if they had been no 
better than a set of fire-irons. It is surprising, under all the circum¬ 
stances, that the sceptre never figured in the catalogue of a sale of 
unredeemed pledges, and we cannot wonder that some of our sovereigns 
have chosen to rule with a rod of iron, as a cheap and durable, but a 
most disagreeable substitute. In addition to the means already alluded 
to, for filling his purse, the young king, or his advisers, hit upon another 
mode of making money. Every one who was worth forty pounds a-year, 
was forced to take up the honour of knighthood, whether he liked it or 
not, and, of course, made to pay the most exorbitant fees for the unde¬ 
sired privilege. In this manner, many persons were dubbed knights, 
for the express purpose of making them dub up ; and there is every 
reason to believe that the word “ dub ” has taken its meaning in relation 
to pecuniary affairs, from the arbitrary practice w T e have mentioned. 
Those illustrious families who trace their genealogy up to some knight 
wdio flourished in the time of Henry VI., will not, perhaps, after this 
disclosure, be so very proud of their origin. We have had in our own 
day one or two who have been dignified with knighthood by mistake, 
instead of somebody else, but those who had greatness thrust upon 
them only for the sake of the fees, were scarcely less contemptible. 


CHAP. IV .] 


BEDFORD IN DIFFICULTIES. 


257 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

HENRY THE SIXTH, SURNAMED OF WINDSOR (CONTINUED). 

edford liad for some time been struggling 
in France under the extreme disad¬ 
vantage of shortness of cash, for the 
council being engaged in continual quar¬ 
relling at home, had become very irre¬ 
gular in sending remittances. He had 
gone week after week without his own 
salary, but he never grumbled at that 
until he found his army, from getting 
short of cash, beginning to fail in allegi¬ 
ance. Often while reviewing the troops, 
if he complained of awkwardness in the 
evolutions, he would hear murmurs of 
“Why don’t you pay us? ” and on one 
occasion an insolent fellow who had 
been bungling over the easy manoeuvre 
of standing at ease, cried out, “ It’s all 
very well to say ‘ Stand at ease,’ but 
how is a man to stand at ease, when he 
never receives his salary?” Upon 
another occasion Bedford had given the word to charge, when a sup¬ 
pressed titter ran through the ranks, and on his demanding an expla¬ 
nation, he was told respectfully by one of his aide-de-camps that the 
troops thought it an irresistible joke to call upon them to “ charge,” 
when, if they charged ever so much, there was no prospect of their 
demand being satisfied. Bedford used to rush regularly every morning 
to the outpost, in the hope of finding a letter containing the means of 
liquidating some of the arrears of pay into which he had fallen with his 
soldiers. He was, however, always doomed to disappointment; for 
there was either no communication for him at all, or an intimation that 
“ next week ”—which never comes—would bring him the cash he was 
so eagerly waiting for. His repeated visits to the outpost usually ended 
in a shake of the head from the officer on duty, whose “ No, Sir; there’s 
nothing for you,” had in it a mixture of compassion and contempt, 
which are not always incompatible. 

Bedford, the regent,having left Paris, Charles thought that the cat being 
away the mice might be at play, and that the city would be unprepared 
if an attack should be made upon it. Beauvais and St. Denis opened 
their gates, but the Parisians were not so complaisant, and Charles, 
unwilling to resort to force, tried the effect of flummery He issued 

s 



258 


COMIC HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 


j BOOK IV. 


proclamations full of the most brilliant promises to his “ good and loyal 
city,” but the inhabitants replied by hanging out an allegorical banner, 
representing an individual in the act of offering some chaff to an old 
bird, 'who was refusing to be caught by it. Stung by this sarcasm, 
Charles determined to make an attack, and on the 12th of September 
he commenced an assault on the Faubourg St. Honore. 

Joan threw herself against the wall, but could make no impression 
upon it; and she could only lament that among the French artillery 
there was no mortar to be brought to bear upon the bricks of the city. 
She then resorted to other steps—or rather to a ladder—and had 



Joan at the walls of Paris. 






































































































































































































































CHAP. IV.] 


JOAN OF ARC DEFEATED. 


259 

reached every successive round amid successive rounds of applause from 
her followers, when she was stopped by a wound, which fairly knocked 
her over. A friendly ditch received the disabled Joan, who went into it 
with a splash, which caused all her companions to basely run away, 
lest they should participate in the consequences of her downfall. 
Drenched and disheartened, sobbing, and in a perfect sop, the Maid 
crawled out of the ditch, and laid down for a little while ; but suddenly 
rising, and giving herself a shake, she made another rush at the battle¬ 
ments. A few better spirits, ashamed of seeing the weakest thus a 
second time going to the wall, joined her in her advance, but meeting 
with resistance, they rolled back like a wave of the sea, almost swamping 
the Maid, and carrying her violently away with them. 

Joan's influence had now begun to decline; for though a heroine is 
popular as long as she succeeds, a woman who fails in her performance 
of the part is always ridiculous. She had also lost the favour of the 
soldiers by attacking them behind their backs, for she had flogged them 
with the flat of her sword till she broke the blade over their shoulders 
They openly called her an impostor, a humbug, and a do ; so that, hurt 
in her feelings as well as in her neck, w r ounded alike in mind and body, 
she resolved to quit the army. She even went to the Abbey church, 
and fixing up a clothes-line, hung her white armour before the shrine 
of St. Denis. Charles supposed the articles had been put there to 
dry after the soaking the Maid had experienced in the ditch; but 
when he heard that Joan, as well as her coat of mail, was on the high 
ropes, he determined to take her down a peg as gently as possible. 
She was persuaded to prolong her stay, or rather to renew her engage¬ 
ment; and though, even after her military debut at the siege of Orleans, 
she had wished it to be her “ positively last appearance on any ram¬ 
parts,” Charles had the satisfaction of announcing that she had in the 
handsomest manner consented to remain in his company. A constant 
renewal of an engagement will dim the attraction of the brightest star, 
and Joan was evidently on the wane as a popular favourite. 

In the beginning of 1430, there w r as a slight cessation of hostilities, 
and Charles remained at Bourges, where he was suffering under a severe 
exhaustion of his means, and a general sinking in all his pockets. At 
this juncture, Joan met with a rival, in the shape of an opposition 
prophetess, for it is always the fate of merit and success to become the 
subject of base and paltry imitation. Catherine of La Rochelle, was 
the name of the female counterfeit who adapted her inspiration to the 
exigencies of the time, and knowing the king to be short of cash, she 
pretended to have fits of financial foresight. She was in fact a visionary 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, running about with an imaginary 
budget, and transforming Charles’s real deficiency into an ideal surplus. 
She affected to hear voices and to see visions; but the former were rude 
shouts of I.O.U., and the latter represented to her certain hidden 
treasure, which was hidden so well that it has never been found from 
that time to the present. She had the art of extracting money for the 

s 2 



260 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK IV. 


king's use from those who had any money to give, and a single speech 
from her mouth was sufficient to fill with coin any soup-plate or saucer 
that might be handed round to the audience. She boasted that she 
could talk every penny out of the purses of her hearers, and whenever 
she appeared, there was a general cry of “ Take care of your pockets ! ” 

Joan called her an impostor and was called “ another ” in return, 
but it was said by a quaint writer of the period that whatever the 
Maid of Orleans might have done with the sword, the tongue of 
Catherine would give an antagonist a more complete licking than the 
most formidable weapon. Charles was attracted by the financial 
fanatic ; but still wishing to propitiate Joan, he ennobled her family, 
and declared that her native village of Domremy should for ever be 
exempt from taxes. It thus became one of the greatest rights of this 
place to forget the whole of its duties. 

At the opening of the spring the French king advanced again 
towards Paris with two prophetesses in his suite; but as two of a trade 
never agree—particularly if they happen to be of the gentler sex—the 
two young ladies were constantly quarrelling It is probable that the 
presence of Catherine was the cause of putting Joan upon her metal, 
for she marched to the relief of Compiegne with all her accustomed 
spirit. She had made up her mind to a repetition of the hit she had 
made at Orleans, but Victory did not answer her call, or show any 
disposition to wait upon her. Joan fought with valour, but her soldiers 
had no sooner met the foe, than they agreed that the chances w^ere 
against them, and that the only way to bring themselves round was to 
turn immediately back, a manoeuvre which was performed by one 
simultaneous movement. Joan tried to rally them, but they were too 
far gone; and while she kept her face to the enemy, her old disaster 
befell her, for she backed into one of those ditches in which all her 
military exploits seemed doomed to terminate There being no 
humane member of society, or member of the Humane Society, to give 
her the benefit of a drag from the water in which she was immersed, 
she was soon surrounded by her enemies. Her own companions had 
fled into the city and shut the gates upon her, against which she had 
not the strength to knock ; when, mournfully murmuring out—“ Alas ! 
I am not worth a rap,” she surrendered to her opponents. The 
sensation created by the capture of Joan of Arc was actually prodi¬ 
gious. The captains ran out of their positions, and the men left their 
ranks to have a peep at her. Duke Philip paid her a visit at her 
lodgings, in the presence of old Monstrelet, who was either so deaf, or 
so stupid, or so thunder-struck, that he could not relate what passed at 
the interview. The ungrateful French made no effort to release the 
Maid, and, indeed, there seemed to be a feeling of satisfaction at having 
got rid of her. Pier captors showed a strong disposition to make much 
of her, by turning the celebrated prophetess to a profit; and the person 
to whom she had surrendered—the Bastard of Vendome—sold her out 
and out to John of Luxembourgh. PTiar Martin pretended to have a 


CHAP. IV.J 


JOAN A PRISONER 


201 


lien upon her; but John, refusing to have the lot put up again, and 
resold—in accordance with the usual practice in cases of dispute—cleared 
her off to a strong castle of his own in Picardy. Another pretended 
mortgagee of the Maid then started up in the person of the Bishop of 
Beauvais, who claimed her on behalf of the University of Paris. John 
of Luxembourgli disposed of her to his holiness for ten thousand 
francs, rather than have any further trouble. 

Poor Joan was committed to prison on the charge of witchcraft, and 
as a kind of preliminary to the proceedings in her own case, a woman 
who believed in the Maid was burned, pour encourager les autres who 
might put faith in her inspiration. The fate of Joan was for some time 
very uncertain; but the learned doctors of the University of Paris, and 
other high authorities, recommended her being burned at once, which 
would save the trouble and expense of a previous trial. The Bishop 
of Beauvais, who had become the proprietor, by purchase, of the illus¬ 
trious captive, recommended the adoption of regular legal proceedings 
Priests and lawyers and lettered men were summoned from far and near; 
many of the legal gentlemen being specially retained, and all being prac¬ 
tised in the art of cross-examination, to which Joan was subjected by those 
who conducted the case for the prosecution. Her trial was, throughout, a 
disgraceful exhibition of forensic chicanery, for her opponents attempted 
to puzzle her with hard words, which, in spite cf her being charged with 
magic spells, she had not the power of spelling. The pleadings were 
shamefully complicated; but she defended herself with spirit, and occa¬ 
sionally confounded the doctors, who were confounded knaves, for they 
tried to take every advantage of her unfortunate position. Sixteen days 
were consumed in taking the evidence, and Joarn sometimes made a point 
in her own favour, when the Bishop of Beauvais, sinking the dignity 
of the judge in the temporary office of usher, began to call lustily for 
silence; and, according to the modern practice of the officer of the 
court, making more noise than every one else by the loudness of his 
vociferations. 

The Bishop shouted and resorted to other ungentlemanly expedients, 
during the entire day, to damage the cause of Joan, who, nevertheless, 
proceeded as if in the midst of that silence which the usher in Westmin¬ 
ster Hall is continually disturbing by loudly calling for It was contended, 
on the part of the prosecution, that there was magic in her banner; but 
Joan, who had served the other side with notice to produce the banner, 
declared there was nothing particular in any part of it. The pole 
belonging to it was as plain as any other pike-staff, and the banner 
itself was formed of a cheap material, which Joan declared was all stuff; 
so that the banner was, of necessity, waived by her enemies. Her judges, 
nevertheless, declared there was sufficient evidence to support a charge 
of heresy, and began to deliberate on the manner of her punishment. 
While some recommended fire, others threw cold water upon it, and 
French, as well as English writers, have laboured to prove, that their 
countrymen, at least, were averse to a proceeding from which the term 


2G2 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


“ burning shame ” no doubt took the signification it bears at present 
Having already found her guilty, her persecutors tried their utmost to 
urge her to acknowledge her guilt, for in the absence of proof, it was 
thought advisable to get at least a confession. 

At length, on the 24tli of May, 1431, the Maid was brought up to 
hear her sentence, and the Bishop of Beauvais, taking out a pile of 
papers—endorsed, re Joan of Arc, declared himself ready to deliver his 
judgment. An opportunity was, however, allowed her to stay execu¬ 
tion, on giving a cognovit, or acknowledgment of every charge brought 
against her; and such a document being drawn up, she reluctantly per¬ 
mitted Joan of Arc, X, her mark—for she could not write—to be affixed 
to it. Her punishment was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, with 
“ the bread of sorrrow and the water of affliction,” which consisted of a 
stale loaf and a pull at the pump once a day, as her only nourishment. 

She found very few crumbs of comfort in her daily crust, and when 
the water was brought to her, she declared it to be very hard, which 
w 7 as certainly better than soft for drinking. It was a portion of her 
punishment to resume her female attire, which caused her considerable 
annoyance, and a soldier’s dress having been left in her prison, she was 
one morning discovered wearing it. Her jailer, on entering, charged 



Joan trying it on. 













































































































































































CHAP. IV.] 


EXECUTION OF JOAN OF ARC. 


2C3 


her with “ trying it on," but added that it was anything but fitting, 
and told her that she would certainly be overhauled when he reported 
that he had seen her in a pair of military overalls. The circumstance 
was instantly turned against her, and the putting on of male attire, 
which she had worn before, was declared to be a revival of the old suit, 
to which she had been liable. Her re-appearance in the soldier’s dress 
was looked upon as a proof of uniform opposition to the authorities; 
and her offence was described as “relapsed heresy,” or double guilt, 
like the “one cold caught on the top of t’other” by the boy who had 
been suffering under several layers of those disagreeable visitors. 
Judgment was now finally entered up against the ill-used Maid, who, on 
the 30th of May, 1431, was brought in a cart to the market-place and 
burned at Rouen. 

We would gladly draw a veil over the fate of poor Joan ; but we are 
unwilling to spare those who were accessary to it, from the odium 
which increases whenever the facts are repeated. Cardinal Beaufort 
and some of the bishops who had been instrumental to the murder of 
the Maid, began to whimper when the ceremony commenced, and to 
find it more than their susceptible natures could bear to witness. They 
had ordered the atrocity that was about to take place; but conscience 
had made them such arrant cowards, that they had not the courage to 
witness the carrying out of their own savage suggestions. If persons 
so hard-hearted as themselves could feel so much affected by the 
sacrifice they had ordered, we may imagine what opinion ought to be 
entertained of them for commanding an act of atrocity which they 
dared not remain to contemplate t 

The conduct of Charles in not interfering on Joan’s behalf, is even 
more cruel and despicable than that of her avowed enemies. The 
French king finding the Maid of no further use, came practically to 
a free translation of Non eget arcu, (there is no want of a Joan of Arc,) 
and left her to the fate that awaited her. It would have been nothing 
but policy to have insured her life, which he might easily have done, 
even when she was threatened with burning, and her case became 
doubly hazardous. 

The English were very anxious to get up a sensation in France by 
way of diverting the public mind from the fate of the Maid of Orleans. 
A coronation, which is always one of the best cards to play, being good 
for a king or queen at the least, was thought of and resolved upon. 
The affair was intended to eclipse the ceremony of which Charles had 
been the hero and Joan of Arc the heroine. Young Henry, who had 
been crowned already at Westminster, and had therefore rehearsed the 
part he would be called upon to play, was brought over to Paris with 
all the scenery, machinery, dresses and decorations, properties and 
appointments, that had been used before, so that the coronation being 
in the repertoire of costly spectacles, the expense of its revival was 
moderate. The performance took place in November, 1431 ; but 
though the getting up was very complete, the applause was scanty, and 


204 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


the attendance by no means numerous. Cardinal Beaufort occupied a 
stall, and there was a fair sprinkling of people in the galleries ; but 
the principal character being a spiritless and most unpromising boy of 
nine, the spectacle excited very little interest. 

Things remaining in France in a very unsatisfactory state, Charles 
and Philip of Burgundy came to the resolution, that it was folly to go 
on cutting one another’s throats, and they consequently effected a com¬ 
promise. Philip got the best of the bargain, which was solemnised by 
a great deal of swearing and unswearing; for as the parties had pre¬ 
viously exchanged oaths of hostility towards each other, it was necessary 
to take the spunge and wipe out former affidavits, as well as to supply 
the blank with new oaths of an opposite character. There was a mutual 
interchange of perjury; and posterity, on looking at the respective 
culpabilities of the two parties, can only come to the conclusion, that 
they were beaucoup dCun beaucoup, or much of a muchness. 

The Duke of Bedford did not live long after this treaty, but died of 
indigestion, and considering that he had eaten an enormous quantity of 
his own words, the result is by no means marvellous. Pie finished 
up his existence at Rouen, on the 14tli of September, 1435, having 
swallowed a parcel of his own oaths, some of which are supposed to have 
stuck in his throat, and caused his dissolution. The English in France 
soon felt the fatal consequences of being without a chief, for the columns 
of an army, like the columns of a journal, are incomplete without a 
leader Deprived of Bedford, the English soldiers could no longer hold 
Paris—or, rather, Paris could no longer hold them—and they were 
consequently forced to surrender. The Duke of York succeeded to the 
command in France—if he can be said to have succeeded who failed in 
almost everything. A succession of reverses was the only thing ap¬ 
proaching to success which he experienced; and a supersedeas was soon 
issued to overturn his commission. 

Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, did something towards restoring the 
English ascendancy in France; but Philip of Burgundy thought he 
would try his hand at a siege, and fixed upon Calais as being the most 
convenient. The Duke of Gloucester, hearing he had a tremendous 
army assembled in front of the town, sent over to Philip an offer to 
fight him. “ Only stop there till I get at you,” were Gloucester’s 
words ; to which Burgundy replied, that he should be happy to wait 
the English Duke's convenience. Four days, however, before the latter 
landed, the former was seized with a panic—and, taking suddenly to his 
heels, his thirty thousand men scampered wildly after him. Philip, 
who had set the example, and must have been flighty to have com¬ 
menced such an insane flight, was completely run off his legs by the 
ruck of fugitives in his rear; and he was swept into the very heart of 
Flanders, before he could ascertain what his soldiers were driving at. 
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, did something towards retrieving the falling 
fortunes of the English ; but, as both parties were getting into a nervous 
state—running away through sheer panics—crying out before they were 






















































































































































































































































































































CHAP. IV.] IIENRY MARRIES MARGARET OF ANJOU. 265 

hurt—and flying before they were pursued—a truce was agreed upon. 
It was for two years, to expire on the first of April, 1446,—and there 
could not have been a more appropriate day than that devoted to All 
Fools, to renew hostilities which were injurious to all parties. 

Henry, of Windsor, was now twenty-four ; but, though a man in years, 
he was still an infant in intellect. He was physically full-grown, but 
mentally a dwarf: and what had been in childhood the gentleness of the 
lamb, became in manhood downright sheepishness. His conversational 
powers would not have allowed him to say “ bo to a goose,” had it been 
necessary for him to address to that foolish bird that unmeaning mono¬ 
syllable. Even his mother had turned her back upon him, as a noodle 
she could make nothing of, and had married Owen Tudor, Esquire, an 
obscure gentleman, of Wales, who boasted, nevertheless, a royal descent, 
or at least maintained that the Tudors were so called from being not 
above Two-doors off from such illustrious lineage. The Queen-mother 
had died, but had left a lot of little Tudors, under the care of 0. T., her 
bourgeois gentilhomme of a husband. 

Henry being a mere nonentity, it was resolved to try and make some¬ 
thing of him by finding him a wife of spirit; as if small beer could be 
turned into stout by mixing a quantity of gin with it. Margaret of 
Anjou was selected for the formation of this deleterious compound. She 
was one of those intolerable nuisances—a fine woman, with a great deal 
of decision, which means that she was decidedly disagreeable. Her 
father was a nominal king of Sicily and Jerusalem; but he had no 
real dominions, and only rented, as it were, a brass plate, or had his 
name up over the door of the countries specified. He was as poor as a 
cup of tea after the fifth water, and ruled over about as much land as 
he could cram into a few flower-pots which adorned the window of his 
lodging. He kept a minister who answered the bell and the purpose at 
the same time, and was accustomed to wait at table. His Majesty’s 
apartment was furnished with a sort of dresser, covered with green baize, 
which formed a board of green cloth; and he had several sticks-in-waiting 
in his umbrella stand. His robe de matin was his robe of state ; he had 
a green silk privy purse, and an or molu cabinet. He had a keeper of 
the great seal which hung to his watch; and his bureau comprised a 
secretary for the home department, in which he kept all his washing 
bills. He dispensed with a master of the horse by keeping no horse of 
his own, and he always had plenty of gentlemen-in-waiting, in the shape 
of creditors. He saved the expense of a paymaster by paying nobody; 
and though he issued Exchequer Bills, they were not only at very long 
dates, but wholly unworthy of any one’s acceptance. He was his own 
Chancellor of his own Exchequer, for he used to declare, with much 
apparent integrity, that his government should never be degraded by 
useless sinecures. “ Whenever there is nothing to do,” he would 
philosophically exclaim, “ I consider it my duty to do it.” He usually 
resided in Sicily when he was at home, but he kept in his court—at the 
back of his lodging—a few Jerusalem artichokes, to represent the 


266 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


interests of his other kingdom of Jerusalem. He used to. make a 
financial statement every now and then, for the sake of dealing him¬ 
self of his debts, which were the subject of an annual act of which he 
alone got the benefit. He used upon these occasions to profess a con 
siderable anxiety to rub off as he went on, but his goings on and 
rubbings off were equally to his own advantage, and the cost of those 
who had trusted him. Never w 7 as political economy canied to such 



The King of Sicily and his Household. 


perfection as by the father of Margaret, the King of Sicily and 
Jerusalem. 

It was hopeless to ask for a dow r er with the daughter of a man who 
had what is vulgarly termed “ a sight of money,” which means that he 
could have put the whole of his income into his eye without any detri¬ 
ment to his vision. Instead of asking anything from a sovereign 
more fitted to be upon the parish than upon the throne, a trifling 
settlement was made upon him, that the king of England might not be 
said to have married the daughter of an absolute monarch and an abso¬ 
lute beggar. Anjou and Maine, which had been taken from him by 











































































































CHAP. IV.] 


DEATH OF THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. 


267 


main force, were restored to him, and a little money was advanced to 
him on account of his first quarter’s revenue, to enable him to cut a 
respectable figure at his daughter’s wedding. 

Suffolk brought home the bride to England, where she was, of course, 
severely criticised. For many she was too tall, and her height was an 
objection that could not be overlooked very easily. The friends of the 
Duke of Gloucester—known as the good Duke Humphrey—declared he 
would have found a better queen ; and Duke Humphrey paid her no 
attention, for he never even asked her to a family dinner, an omission 
which gave rise to a saying* that is still current. 

The Good Duke Humphrey, though he gave no one a dinner, was 
anxious to let every one have his desert, which made his royal highness 
very unpopular. His enemies began by charging his wife with necro 
roancy, because she was in the habit of consulting the dregs of her tea¬ 
cup when turned out into her saucer—an act that was stigmatised as 
sorcery. She was also proved to have in her possession a large wax 
doll, resembling the King, which she was in the habit of placing before 
the fire for the purpose, it was said, of sweating her sovereign. This was 
interpreted into a desire to see him waste away, and she was accordingly 
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Had she been able to melt the 
king himself as she melted his effigy, she might have been pardoned; 
but though his wax image was soft enough, he only waxed wroth when 
an appeal in her behalf was made to him. Her husband now became per¬ 
sonally an object of persecution, and was arrested on a charge of treason, 
on the 11th of February, 1447, when he went to take his seat at the 
opening of Parliament. On the 28th of the same month, he was found 
dead in his bed, and of course the conclusion was that he had been mur¬ 
dered, though there were no signs of violence. There were various 
rumours as to the cause of Duke Humphrey’s death, and despair, 
dyspepsia, apoplexy, and unhappy perplexity, or a broken heart, were 
equally spoken of as having occasioned his dissolution. It is strange 
that inanition was never thought of as a probable mode of accounting 
for the decease of Duke Humphrey, whose stinted diet has given to his 
dinners an unenviable notoriety. 

The old rival and uncle of the good Duke Humphrey did not long 
survive his nephew, for the grasping prelate died on the 11 tli of April, 

J 447, at Winchester, where he had retired to his see, from which he 
was to the last straining his eyes towards the Popedom. 

Under the ministry of Suffolk the glory of England rapidly declined, 
and its possessions in France were daily diminishing. Parliament 
began to take the matter seriously up, and not a day passed without 
some awkward motion being made to embarrass the Government. At 
length, in January, 1450, Suffolk became so exasperated that he chal¬ 
lenged his enemies to the proof of their accusations, which was equiva¬ 
lent to asking for a vote of confidence. The Commons replied by 
requesting the Lords to send him to the Tower, wdiich they declared 

* Dining with Duke Humphrey is a process that needs no explanation. 


‘208 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


themselves most happy to do, if the Lower House would only send up 
a specific charge on which he might be committed. The Commons 
acceded with the utmost pleasure to the demand, and cooked up an 
accusation very promptly, for in those days such things were kept 
almost ready made, to be used at the shortest notice, for the purpose of 
knocking the head from off the shoulders of a minister. It was laid in 
the indictment against Suffolk, that he had been furnishing a castle 
with military stores; or, in other words, ordering a quantity of gun¬ 
powder to be sent in for the purpose of assisting France against 
England. Though the accusation was wretchedly vague, it was suffi¬ 
cient foundation for a warrant, upon which Suffolk was seized by the 
scurf of the neck, and hurried to the Tower. Fearing that one bill of 
impeachment might be insufficient, his enemies published a series of 
supplements. 

In his defence he noticed only the first set of charges, which accused 
him of a desire to put the crown on the head of his son; a freak that 
Suffolk never had the smallest idea of practising. On the 13th of 
March, 1450, he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords, and 
went down upon his knees like a horse—or rather like an ass—on the 
wooden pavement. He denied, ridiculed, and repudiated some of the 
articles in the impeachment, and accused the lords themselves of being 
his accomplices in some others. A proceeding which we can only 
characterise as a general row immediately took place, and the House of 
Lords became a perfect piece of ursine horticulture, or regular bear¬ 
garden. 

Suffolk, though warmly defended by the Court, was furiously attacked 
by the Commons, who declared they would not vote a penny of the sup¬ 
plies while the minister remained unpunished. The king, as long as it 
did not affect his pockets, was tolerably staunch towards his friend, but 
when no money came in, and the royal outgoings continued to be large, 
it was found expedient to throw the favourite over. Every fresh bill 
that was placed on the unpaid file at the palace shook the royal resolu¬ 
tion ; and when the eye of the king glanced over his huge accumulation 
of unsettled accounts, he began to think seriously whether it was not too 
great a sacrifice to lose his supplies for the sake of saving Suffolk. 

The favourite was gradually getting out of favour, and was sent for 
by the king to a private interview, in the course of which it was inti 
mated to the duke that he must be dropped, but that he should be “ let 
down ” as easily as possible. This private intimation kept Suffolk in 
a state of suspense considerably worse than certainty; for it is a well- 
established fact, given on the authority of those who have tried both, 
that a bold leap into the fire is preferable to a constant grill on the 
gridiron, or a perpetual ferment in the frying-pan. 

On the 17th of March Suffolk was again brought up in presence of 
the king, at a sort of judicial “ at home,” given by his Majesty. It 
took place, according to some authorities, in the sovereign’s private 
apartments; but the chroniclers are mute as to which room—whether 


CHAP. IV.] 


DISGRACE AND BANISHMENT OF SUFFOLK. 


269 


tlie two-pair back, the one-pair front, the salle a manger , or the salon — 
was the scene of the important interview. Suffolk threw himself once 
more at the feet of the king, who, it is to be hoped, had no corns; but 
Henry must have felt hurt at receiving a minister on such a footing. 
Suffolk, still at his master’s feet, endeavoured to hit upon Henry’s 
tender points, but the sovereign was, on this occasion, influenced by 
the impression made upon his understanding. He ordered Suffolk 
into banishment for five years, and gave him till the 1st of May to pack 



Banishment of Suffolk. 


up for his departure. The people were determined not to let the 
traitor off so easily, and no less than two thousand assembled to take 
his life, which he wisely abstained from placing at their disposal. He 
gave a farewell banquet at one of his country seats to his relatives and 
friends; and upon his health being duly proposed as the toast of the 





















































































































































































































































270 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK IV. 

evening, lie swore of course that he was perfectly innocent. Finding it 
necessary to dodge the popular indignation, he started off to Ipswich, 
whence he embarked for the Continent. 

On the 2nd of May, as he was sailing between Dover and Calais, his 
convoy—consisting of a smack and punt for self and retinue—was 
hailed by a great hulking man-of-war from the hulks, which bore the 
name of Nicholas of the Tower. This was a sad blow to the little smack, 
which would have gladly gone off, had it not been most vigorously 
brought-to by the larger vessel. The duke was ordered on board the 
Nicholas, and after the ship had stood off and on for three days, it turned 
out that the vessel was only waiting to take in an axe, a block, and an 
executioner. This dismal addition to the freight having at last arrived, 
it was immediately put in requisition, and as Suffolk was very unpopular 
nobody took the trouble to inquire what had become of him. The only 
account that could ever be given of him was that he had been taken 
away by the crew of the Nicholas, which was a very old ship; and the 
announcement that Suffolk had gone to Old Nick was all that was ever 
said concerning him. 

We are soon about to enter upon those wars of the Roses, which 
planted so many thorns in the bosom of fair England. It is strange 
that out of couleur de rose should have emanated some of the most 
sombre and melancholy hues that ever darkened the pages of our 
history. “ Coming events cast their shadows before,” and the shade in 
this instance was one Cade, familiarly called Jack Cade by various 
authorities. This celebrated individual was a native of Ireland, who 
had served in France in the English army, so that he may be called a 
kind of Anglo-Irish-Frenchman, a combination that reminds us of the ce¬ 
lebrated poly-politician, who being desirous of being thought “ open to all 
parties,” with the view of being ultimately influenced by one, gave himself 
out as a conservative-whig-radical. Jack Cade was a jack-of-all-trades, or 
at all events, a jack of two, for he had been a doctor first, and a soldier 
afterwards. Some have ironically contended that the change from a 
medical to a military life was only an extension of the same business, 
and that in resigning the bolus for the bullet, the powders for the gun¬ 
powder, and the lancet for the sword, he was only enlarging the sphere 
of his practice. With that remarkable deference for the aristocracy 
they pretend to despise, which is only too common amongst demagogues, 
Cade tried to claim relationship even with royalty, and giving himself 
out as a relation of the Duke of York, he assumed the name of 
Mortimer. 

That Cade was a decayed scion of an illustrious stock may be 
doubted, and some, who have not been ashamed of an anachronism, for 
the sake of a sneer, have gone so far as to say that the Cades were the 
earliest cads of which there are any records 

It has been well remarked somewhere, by somebody, that the men 
of Kent, though living near the water, were always very inflammable, 
and the Kentish fire is to this day proverbial for its intensity. Cade 


CHAP. JV.] 


JACK CADES REBELLION. 


271 


threw himself among these men, who made him their captain, and 
marched with him to Blackheath, from which he commenced a long 
correspondence with the Londoners. The government, alarmed at an 
assembly of fifteen or twenty thousand men at a place where large 
assemblies were unusual, sent to enquire the reason of the good men of 
Kent having quitted their homes in such large numbers. Cade, who 
among his other restless habits, appears to have been troubled with a 
ecicoetlies scribendi, took upon himself to answer for the whole, and 
embodied their reasons in a document called the “ Complaint of the 
Commons of Kent,” which was of a somewhat discursive character. It 
commenced by alluding to a report that Kent was to be turned into a 
hunting forest, and remonstrated against the people being made game 
of in such a fearful manner; it then proceeded to abuse the government 
in general terms, which have since been the stereotyped phraseology of 
nearly all the friends of the people; it complained of others fattening 
on the royal revenue, which forced the king to supply the deficiency by 
robbing his subjects, and to take their provisions wholesale as well as 
retail, without paying a penny for them. Allusion was then made to 
the lowness of the company admitted to court, though this seems to 
have been rather over nice on the part of Jack and his followers. The 
document then came to the point, by intimating that the men of Kent 
had been subjected to extortion and treated with contempt, so that they 
had been, at the same time, over-taxed and under-rated. 

When the Court received this elaborate catalogue of ills, it was 
intimated to Cade and his companions, that it would take some time to 
prepare the answer; but the authorities thinking that powder and 
shot would answer better than pen and ink, set to work to collect troops 
and ammunition in London. Cade could not resist his propensity to 
scribble, and sent in a second paper, headed “ The Requests, by the 
captain of the great assembly in Kent.” In his new manifesto Jack 
required an entire re-arrangement of the royal household even down to 
the minutest domestic arrangements; and it was even said, that not a 
pie came to the king’s table without Jack wishing to have a finger in it. 

The Court was now prepared with an answer in the shape of a large 
army, which advanced upon Blackheath, and caused Cade to be taken 
so regularly aback, that he jibbed as far as Sevenoaks. Here he 
halted, and waited the attack of the royal army, a detachment of which 
came up and went down like a pack of cards, though as they had lost 
all heart there is something defective in the comparison. When the 
main army at Blackheath heard the fate of the detachment at Seven- 
oaks, the soldiers suddenly began to object to fighting against their own 
countrymen. The Court then found it time to make concession, and 
commenced by sending a few of its own party to the Tower, in order to 
propitiate the malcontents. Lord Say, an obnoxious minister, who was 
not merely a say, but a tremendous do, was at once locked up with 
some others who had rendered themselves unpopular. 

Cade now made himself master of the right bank of the Thames 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGIAND. 


[BOOK IV 


272 


from Greenwich to Lambeth, both inclusive, and made the celebrated 
incision into the latter, which retained the name of the New Cut to a 
very distant period. Cade took up his own quarters in Southwark, but 
went into London every morning, where he and his followers behaved 
very quietly for a few days, returning home regularly every evening to 
their lodgings in the Borough. Their first act of violence was to 
insist on the trial of Say, who was not allowed to have his say in hi3 
own defence, but was. hurried off to Cheapside and beheaded. As too 
frequently happens with the promoters of the public good, Cade’s 
followers could not keep their hands off private property, and a little 
pillage was perpetrated. Even Jack himself, who sometimes set a good 
example to his followers, w r as tempted to plunder the house at which he 
usually dined; and the citizens, feeling that as the spoons were begin¬ 
ning to go, their turn would probably be next, became indignant at the 
outrage. They consequently refused admission to Cade the next morn¬ 
ing when he came to transact his city business as usual. 

It was next determined by the Court to delude the rebels by an offer 
of a pardon; and Cade caught at the bait with a simplicity less charac¬ 
teristic of a Jack than of a gudgeon. In two days, however, he altered 
his mind, and refused to lay down his arms or walk off his legs, until 
Government gave a guarantee for the fulfilment of its promises. With 
the customary hatred of each other, which too often prevails among 
the lovers of their country, the patriots commenced quarrelling. Cade 
began to fear that some disinterested friend of freedom would sell him 
for the thousand marks that were offered for his head ; and Jack, from 
the idea of being apprehended, was thrown into a constant state of 
apprehension. Sneaking quietly down stairs in the night, he found 
his way to the stable, where he mounted a clever hack, and using 
what spurs he could to the animal’s exertion, put him along at a 
slapping pace towards the coast of Sussex. He had not proceeded very 
far, when turning to look back on what he had gone through, he saw at 
his heels Alexander Iden, Esq. Jack had scarcely got out the words, “Is 
that you, Alick ?” when a lick from Iden’s sword' revealed the purpose 
of his mission. “No, you don’t!” cried Cade, parrying an attempt to 
plant a second blow, and putting in a slight poke with his battle-axe 
very efficiently. Were we to borrow the graphic style of the sporting 
chroniclers in describing a fight, we should say that Iden came up 
smiling, and evidently meaning business, which he transacted by enu¬ 
merating one, tw r o, three, in rapid succession on Jack’s chest, followed 
up by four, five, six, on the face, and seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, 
twelve, in the stomach. Cade endeavoured to rally, but every effort 
failed; and Alexander Iden, Esq., claimed the thousand marks that 
had been advertised. The amount was large for a head with very little 
in it; but the tail, consisting of the riff-raff led on by Cade, formed the 
real value of the article. 

A dispute now commenced between persons of higher degree; or, 
rather, it is to be suspected that Cade and his men had been used as 


CHAP. IV.] 


QUARREL OF YORK AND SOMERSET. 


273 


the tools of some more exalted malcontent. It very frequently happens 
that political agitators in an humble rank of life are either cunningly 
or unconsciously playing the game of a political schemer of more exalted 
station ; and while they are supposed to be working for the overthrow 
of one tyrant, they are preparing the way for the establishment of 
another. 

The Duke of York was the individual who, endeavouring to profit by 
the recent revolt, left Ireland, of which he had been Lieutenant, and 
forced himself into the king’s presence. “Now then, what is it?” 
cried Henry, annoyed at the sudden intrusion ; when York replied he 
had come to extract something from the mouth of the sovereign. “ A 
tooth, perchance ? ” ironically remarked the king ; but his Majesty was 
informed that a promise to summon a Parliament was the utmost that 
York required. This was acceded to, and, when Parliament met, one 
of the members proposed declaring the Duke of York heir apparent to 
the throne, but the proposer was indignantly coughed down, uncere¬ 
moniously pulled out, and promptly committed to the Tower. The 
Duke, discouraged at having a minority of one, which imprisonment 
had reduced to none, in his favour, repaired to his castle at Ludlow, 
where he collected a large army; but, by way of proving that he 
had no evil intentions towards the king, he took, every now and then, 
the oatli of allegiance. This periodical peijury had veiy little effect, 
for York was better known than trusted, and an army was sent against 
him. As the forces went one way to meet him, he came up to London 
by another road, but the gates of the city were slammed in his face just 
as he came up to them. “ Well I’m sure! ” was the indignant murmur 
of York, to which, according to an Irish chronicler who came from 
Ireland in the Duke’s suite, “ You can’t come in,” was the only echo. 
Foiled in this attempt, he went to Kent, expecting Jack Cade’s followers 
would rally round him, but beyond some half-dozen seedy scamps, 
belonging to the class excluded from kitchens under the general order 
of “ No followers allowed,” there were no adherents to York’s banner. 
When Henry came up with him at Dartford, both of them, like two 
little boys who have met to fight and don’t know how to begin, were 
anxious to negotiate. This was agreed to, and the Duke having dis¬ 
banded his army, by which, as the papers say when a theatre closes 
prematurely, “an immense number of persons were thrown out of employ,” 
he went to Henry’s tent for a personal interview. The meeting was 
very unpleasant, for Somerset happening to be seated there, had the 
bad taste to assail York with a volley of vulgar abuse, which the latter 
repaid with interest. “ You ’re a felon and a traitor, sir! ” cried 
Somerset, as York came in, which elicited, by way of reply, “ You ’re an 
old humbug,” and other taunts, among which “ Who embezzled the 
taxes ? ” were rather conspicuous. As the Duke was about to depart, a 
tipstaff tripped up to him, and, begging his pardon, intimated that he 
was in custody Somerset would have applied for speedy execution, 
but York compromised the affair by a little more perjury, for he swore 

T 


274 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


a good batch—sufficient to last him a whole year—of truth and alle¬ 
giance. He then retired to his castle, where he may have amused 



Quarrel between Somerset and York. 


himself with playing at “ Beggar my Neighbour ” with his porter, a 
far as we can tell, for his employment while in seclusion at Wigmore is 
not recorded in history. 

Henry’s utter incapacity to hold the reins, which were literally 
dropping out of his hands, began to give great uneasiness to the 
Parliament. York was wanted back, and Somerset was sent to the 
Tower, for the two rivals were like the two figures in the toy for indicating 
the weather. What brought one out sent the other in, and a storm 
was the signal for the entrance of York, while political sunshine was 
favourable to Somerset. On the 14th of February, 1454, York opened 
Parliament as commissioner for the king, who was personally visited at 
Windsor by a deputation of peers, desirous of ascertaining his exact 
condition. They found Henry perfectly imbecile, and incapable of 
understanding a word or uttering a syllable. The deputation conceiving 
it possible that his Majesty might be merely muddled, retired, to give 
him time to come to, but on their return they found him in the same 
state as before, and ditto repeated on a third visit. The deputation, 
resolving unanimously that “this sort of thing would never do,” reported 
the facts to Parliament, and Richard, Duke of York, was elected “ Pro¬ 
tector and Defender of the realm of England.” In about nine months. 






































































































































































CHAP. IV.j 


henry’s RECOVERY. 


275 


Henry was declared to have recovered his senses, such as they were, 
and the Court claimed for him the return of the reins, which had been 
taken out oi his hands by reason of his incapacity. York was instantly 
put down, and Somerset again taken up to occupy the box-seat as 
heretofore. 

The ex-protector retired to Ludlow as before, but got together some 
troops, and poor Henry was put, or carried, or propped up, at the 
head of an opposing army. The duke having no fear of a force under 
such a tumble-down leader, met him near the capital, and sent a 
message, full of loyalty, to the king, but insisting on Somerset being 
sent back by return, to be dealt with in the most rigorous manner. An 
answer was returned in the king’s name, declaring his determination to 
perish rather than betray his friend; but it was the friend himself who 
assigned to his majesty this very disinterested preference. The sovereign 
was indeed so imbecile that he knew not what he said, and understood 
nothing of what was said for him, so that when asked if he would not 
rather die in battle than hand Somerset over to the foe, an unmeaning 
grin was the only reply of the royal idiot. A fight of course ensued, 
and York got the best of it. Somerset was among the slain, and the 
poor king, who was as innocent of the use of a sword as a child in arms, 
got a wound in the neck, which sent him howling and reeling away till 
be took refuge in a tan-yard. York found him hiding among the hides, 
and pulling him out with gentleness, conducted him to the Abbey of 
St. Alban’s. Every care was taken of the wounded monarch, whose 
neck was duly poulticed, and whose feet were put in hot water, though 
indeed they were seldom out of it. 

When Parliament met after this affair, theoretical allegiance was 
sworn to the king and prince, but practical contempt of their position 
was exercised. York was declared protector until Edward, the heir to 
the throne, attained his majority; but Henry was superannuated at 
once, for he was liable, like a hare in the month of March, to fits of 
insanity. He was sometimes sensible enough, but no one could eluci¬ 
date the date of his lucid intervals; and as the sceptre is little better 
than a red-hot poker in a madman's hands, he was very properly 
deprived of that powerful instrument. 

Things had been thus arranged, when, on the meeting of Parliament, 
in 1456, after the Christmas recess, Henry, to the surprise of everyone, 
rushed in, exclaiming—“ I’ll trouble you for that crown!” and “ Oblige 
me with a catch of that ball!”—alluding to the orb which forms part of 
the regalia. No one disputed his restoration to sanity, and York re¬ 
signed the protectorate, looking unutterable things, as if he had just 
been engaged in a speculation by which he had made a profit of eight 
pence and incurred the loss of a shilling. 

The King now endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between the 
rival parties, who affected to make it up, but started at once to their 
respective castles, for the purpose of looking up materials and men for 
the renewal of hostilities York sent his sword to the grinder’s, his 

T 2 


270 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


armour to the tin-plate-worker's, to be let out, pieced, and otherwise 
repaired—while the Lancastrian chiefs were, on their side, resorting to 
similar arrangements. At length they came to a battle, in September, 
1459, and the" Yorkists were in the better position, when Sir Andrew 
Trollop—either from blocklieadism, or bribery, or both—deserted, with 
all his veterans, to the standard of Henry. York, taking a series of hops 
skips and jumps over the Welsh mountains, fled into Ireland. He ran 
so fast, that the muscles of his leg were contracted; and it was said at 
the time, that the York hams had as much as they could do to keep 
a-head of the Bath chaps, many of whom were engaged in the battle, 
from having lived not far from the neighbourhood. Warwick escaped to 
Calais, where he was exceedingly popular, and he soon collected forces 
enough to admit of his landing in Kent, where he stuck up his banner 
with the view of collecting a crowd, and then touting for followers. The 
project was successful, and by the time he reached Blackheath he had 
got thirty thousand men at his heels, according to the old chroniclers, 
who, it is only fair to say, have a peculiar multiplication table of their 
own, and who, whatever may be their aptitude at facts, certainly present 
to us some of the very oddest figures. 

Warwick’s reception was very enthusiastic. The Archbishop ran out 
of Canterbury to meet him and shake him by the hand, Lord Cobham 
clapped him amicably on the shoulders, and five bishops, taking off their 
mitres, waved them as he passed in token of welcome. Warwick made at 
once for the midland counties, carrying with him the young heir of York, 
and meeting the Lancastrians at Northampton, a battle was fought 
which ended in the defeat of the latter. Henry was taken prisoner; 
but his wife Margaret of Anjou escaped with her son Edward, and en¬ 
countered one of those adventures which season with a spice of romance 
ths sometimes insipid dish of history. The story we are about to relate 
is offered with a caution to our readers, but it is too good to be omitted, 
and we are, moreover, afraid that were we to leave it out for the sake of 
correctness, we should be blamed for the omission. Use is second 
nature in literature as well as in anything else; and the public, being 
accustomed to falsehood, would regard the absence of even the most 
flagrant hoax as a curtailment of the fair proportions of history. It is, 
however, only under protest, that we can lend ourselves to the gratifica¬ 
tion of this very morbid appetite, and we, therefore, advise the following 
story on the authority of De Moleville, to be taken not merely cum grano 
salis, but with an entire cellar of that very wholesome condiment. 

The anecdote runs as follows: Margaret fled with her son into the 
recesses of a forest, like one of those which we see on the stage, where cut 
woods, canvas banks, and trees growing downwards from the sky-boarders, 
furnish an umbrageous recess of the most sombre character. We fancy 
we see her advancing to slow music, laying her child on a canvas bank, 
and listening to the rattle of peas accompanied by the shaking of sheet 
iron, which form the rain and thunder of theatrical life, when suddenly 
a whistle is heard, and two figures enter, whose long black worsted hair, 


CHAP. IV.] 


MARGARET AND THE ROBBER. 


277 


wash-leather gauntlets, drawn broadswords, and yellow ochre counte¬ 
nances, bespeak that they are robbers of the worst complexion. The 
queen has, of course, all her jewels blazing about her, which the two 
men proceed to appropriate, and while they are quarrelling about the 
division ot her booty, she contrives to escape. 

This brings us to another part of the same forest, where the scenery 
is not quite so elaborate, but where Margaret, leading on her infant 
son, stumbles upon a sentimental robber with a drawn sword in his 
hand, a tear of sensibility in his eye, and in his mouth a claptrap. She 
appeals to his generosity in favour of a “female in distress;” he replies 
with some cutting allusions to the “ man who—” compares himself to a 
melon, or a cocoa-nut, or anything else with a rough exterior, but with 
some sweetness or milk of human kindness within, and by way of 
climax, she exclaims, “ Here, my friend, I commit to your care the 
safety of the king’s son.” The honest fellow—by whom we mean, of 
course, the professional thief and casual cut-throat—goes down upon one 



Margaret of Anjou and her Child meeting the benevolent Robber. 


























































































278 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


knee in a fit of loyalty, and according to the scholastic versions of this 
little incident, he is “ recalled to virtue by the flattering confidence 
reposed in him.”* He went also a step further, and at once devoted 
himself to the service of the queen, magnanimously offering to share 
her fortunes, which considering the desperate nature of his own, was 
a proposition equally indicative of self-love and loyalty. Her majesty 
accepted the offer, and embarked for Flanders, of course paying all the 
expenses of her friend the sentimental robber, who became the com¬ 
panion of her flight, and a pensioner on her pocket. 

Fighting between the adherents of York on one side, and of 
Lancaster on the other, continued with unabated fury, until York 
having gained a victory at Northampton, called a Parliament, and 
walked straight up to the throne. He took hold of the hammer-cloth, 
as if about to mount, and looked round, as much as to say, “ Shall I?” 
but no “hears,” “cheers,” or “ bra voes,” encouraged him to proceed. 
Another battle was fought soon after at Wakefield Bridge, when 
Richard, Duke of York, was killed, and his son Edward succeeded to 
the title, which was very shortly afterwards exchanged for that of king, 
at a packed meeting of citizens. The question was put whether 
Henry was fit to reign, and the “ Noes ” had it as a matter of course, 
when a motion that Edward of York should ascend the throne, was 
carried by a large majority. 

Thus he who was not yet of age, and who had been recently nothing 
more than Earl March, was in early March, 1461, voted to the 
sovereignty by the acclamation of the people. Rushing into the 
House of Lords, he vaulted in a true spirit of vaulting ambition on to 
the throne, from which he delivered a discourse on hereditary right, 
making out every other right to be wrong, and maintaining his own 
right to be the only genuine article. 

Poor Margaret made a futile attempt to rouse the loyalty of the 
citizens of London in a letter which she addressed to them.f but the 
style is so exceedingly vague, that, we do not wonder at the document 
having proved ineffectual. As far as it is possible to collect the meaning 
of the epistle to which we have referred, it trounces the Duke of York 
in a style of truly female earnestness. It calls him an “ untrue, unsad, 
and unadvised person,” who is, “ of pure malice, disposed to continue 
in his cruelness, to the utterest undoing, if he might,” of the fair letter- 
writer and her offspring. Poor Margaret’s state of mind may have 
accounted for the tremendous topsy-turviness—to use a familiar expres¬ 
sion—of her sentences. The bursting heart cannot trammel itself bv 
those fetters which grammarians and rhetoricians have forged to restrain 
language within its proper limits. That Margaret of Anjou was a 

* See Pinnock’s edition of Goldsmith’s History of England, p. 143 of the 32nd 
edition. 

+ This letter, which is to be found in the Ilarleian MSS., No. 543, Fol. 147, is also 
given in Mary Anne Wood’s interesting collection of Letters of Royal and Illustrious 
Ladies of Great Britain The letter of Margaret of Anjou forms the 38th in the first 
volume of the work alluded to. 


CHAP. IV.] 


HOUSEHOLD OF QUEEN MARGARET. 


270 


woman of business is evident from a copy of one of her wardrobe books 
now, in a state of perfect preservation, in the office of the Duchy of 
Lancaster. This private ledger of the royal lady would be a model for 
the accounts of modern housekeepers. 

It comprises a journal of payments even down to the accuracy of 
pence; and her gardener’s wages, put down at a hundred shillings 
a-year, may be considered a fair criterion of the average scale of her 
expenditure. She laid out little in clothes, though she kept twenty- 
seven valets as w : ell as a number of ladies-in-waiting, and “ ten little 
damsels," whose salaries and persons were no doubt equally diminutive. 
That her economy must have been wonderful, is evident from the fact 
that she did it all for seven pounds a day, which she regularly paid to 
the treasurer of the king’s household. 

It has not often been our lot to begin with a new sovereign until we 

have finished with the old ; but in the present instance we must drop 

Henry VI. before his death, according to the example set us by his 

ungrateful people. We have, perhaps, lingered too long over the 

downfall of Henry, and we are warned bv a sort of mental shout cf 

». •/ 

“ Edward IV. stops the way,” that we must drive on with our history. 


280 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IY. 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 

EDWARD THE FOURTH. 

3 ward, like the individual wlio having got 
such a thing as a crown about him, fully 
intended keeping it, lost no time in going 
into the provinces to enforce his claims. 
After killing twenty-eight thousand Lan¬ 
castrians, and threatening a lesson on the 
Lancastrian system to any one who might 
continue to oppose him: he returned to 
town, and was crowned on the 29tli of June, 
1401, in the usual style of magnificence. 

Poor Henry, the deposed sovereign, was 
carried about at the head of his adherents, 
to give them something to rally rouud ; but 
they might just as well have had a may- 
pole, or any other inanimate object, for the 
ex-king was utterly imbecile. He could 
only he compared to a Guy in the hands of 
the boys on the 5tli of November; and 
sometimes, when his adherents were forced 
to run for it, they set him down to escape 
as he could, by which he was occasionally on the point of being taken 
prisoner. 

Edward assembled a Parliament, which cut short all objections to the 
line of York by declaring that the three last kings of the line of Lan¬ 
caster were intruders, and the grants they had made were of course 
reversed, in order to raise a fund for laying in a large supply of new 
loyalty. 

Poor Henry, to whom peace and quietness were necessary, would 
have been very well satisfied to retire into private life, had not his 
impetuous wife, the tremendous Margaret, dragged him about with her 
at the head of a few proscribed and desperate nobles. Shortness of 
cash cramped the efforts of this impetuous female, who ran over to 
France with the intention of begging and borrowing from all her rela¬ 
tives. The Duke of Brittany gave her a trifle, but Louis XI. pleaded 
poverty, and even produced his books to-show that he had not a penny 
beyond what he required for his own necessities. When, however, she 
talked of surrendering Calais, he produced twenty thousand crowns, 
which he had probably put by in an old stocking, and lent her the sum, 
with a couple of thousand men, under Peter de Breze. 













CHA1 5 . V.] 


MARRIAGE OF EDWARD IV. 


281 


"With this assistance Margaret burst into the Northern Counties, and 
pushing poor Henry before her wherever she went, thrust him through 
the gates of a small series of castles, which she had taken by surprise. 
These were soon taken back again, and Margaret being obliged to fly, 
lost all her borrowed money in a storm at sea, which washed all her 
property in one direction, and herself in another. After a few minor 
transactions, the 15th of May, 1464, was rendered famous by the battle 
of Hexham, at which the hiding or tanning of the Lancastrians was so 
complete that Hexham tan is to this day a leading article of commerce. 
Margaret escaped to her father’s court, but poor Henry, after wandering 
about the moors of Lancashire, had found his way to Yorkshire, where 
he had gone out to dine at Waddington Hall, when a treacherous 
servant, or a traitor waiter, delivered him up to his enemies. The 
unhappy Henry was turned into the Tower, which, under all the cir¬ 
cumstances, was the best place for him. 

Edward, now adopting the sentiment of the vocalist, who, wishing to 
introduce a tender song in the character of a hero, modulates into a 
softer feeling by exclaiming, “ Farewell glory, welcome love,” resolved 
on paying those devotions to the fair which a necessity for encountering 
the brave had hitherto rendered impossible. He had intended to marry 
some foreign princess, and Warwick had engaged him to a young lady, 
named Bona, daughter of the Duke of Savoy, and sister to the Queen 
of France ; but the king denied that he had ever given instructions to 
sue, and declined being bound by the act of his solicitor, who had 
solicited for him the hand of the fair princess. The truth was, that 
his majesty had formed other views, or rather other views had been 
formed for him by an old match-making mother, who exhibited all those 
manoeuvring qualities which constitute, in the present day, the art of 
getting a daughter off to the best advantage. 

The king, while hunting at Stony Stratford, pursuing a stag, came 
suddenly ujdoii a pretty dear, who literally staggered him. The young 
lady was the widow of Sir Thomas Gray, and the daughter of Jacquetta 
of Luxemburg by her second husband, Sir Richard Woodville, after¬ 
wards Earl of Rivers. There is not the smallest doubt that Lady 
Gray and her mamma had arranged together this accidental interview. 
The young lady, who seems to have been a finished pupil in the school 
of flirtation, entreated the king to reverse the attainder passed on her 
late husband, to which Edward replied, that “ he must be as stony¬ 
hearted as Stony Stratford itself, if he could refuse her anything.” This 
rubbish ripened into a real offer of marriage, which was of course 
accepted, and Lady Gray was crowned Queen of England in the year 
following. 

Warwick was rather nettled at being as he said “made a fool of” by 
his royal master, and grew particularly jealous of the influence of the 
king’s wife, who got off her five unmarried sisters upon the heirs of as 
many dukes or earls. He intrigued with the king’s brother, the duke 
of Clarence, and both of them being denounced as traitors, were 


282 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[LOOK IV 


obliged to go abroad upon an order to travel. They visited h ranee, 
where King Louis not only supplied them with board and lodging, but 



Edward 1V. meeting Elizabeth Woodville 


put Warwick in the way of a negotiation with Queen Margaret which 
it was thought would be advantageous to all parties. It was arranged 
that another push should be made to push Henry on to the throne, but 
as Warwick never did business for nothing, he stipulated for the 
marriage of his daughter with the queen’s son, Edward. 

Having reduced everything to writing, Warwick took his standard 
out of his portmanteau for the purpose of planting it, and on the 13th 
of September 1470, he landed at Plymouth with a select but sturdy 
party of malcontents. The people, whose motto was—“ anything for a 




























































ciiAr. v.] 


BATTLE OF BARNET. 


283 


change,” were soon persuaded to join in a cry of “ Long live King 
Henry,” and he was taken out of the Tower for the purpose of being 
dragged about as a puppet to give a sort of legitimacy to Warwick’s 
projects. This nobleman had got the name of the king-maker from a 
knack he had of manufacturing the royal article with a rapidity truly 
astonishing. He could coin a sovereign to order with a dispatch that 
the mint itself might fairly be jealous of. He could provide a new 
king at the shortest notice, like those victuallers who profess to have 
“ dinners always ready and Edward having got into “very low cut,” 
Henry was “just up ” as the latest novelty from the cuisine of the 
ingenious Warwick. 

When Edward saw what was going on he thought it high time for 
himself to be going off, and, with a few adherents who had not a change 
of linen in their trunks nor a penny in their purses, he got into a ship 
bound for Holland. The king himself had no money to pay his passage, 
and offered the captain, says Comines, “a gown lined with martens,” as 
a remuneration for his services. Edward fled to Burgundy, where he 
persuaded the duke to advance a trifle in the way of ships, money, and 
men, with which the ousted monarch landed at Kavenspur. On his first 
arrival the people held back, saying, “ Oh, here’s the old business over 
again. We’ve had enough of this,” and employing other expressions of 
discouragement. He, however, declared he had no intention of unsettling 
anything or anybody—except his bills, which remained unsettled as a 
matter of course—and was allowed to enter the capital, where he was 
once more proclaimed sovereign. It is an old commercial principle in 
this country, that debt is a sign of prosperity, and Edward’s success 
has been attributed to the fact of his owing vast sums to the London mer 
chants. They were, of course, interested in the well being of their debtor, 
and the hypothesis was thus proved to be true, that he who is worse off 
is in a better position than he who is well to do, and the man whose 
circumstances are tolerably straight, is not so eligibly situated as the 
individual whose affairs are materially straightened. Edward though 
not in clover, was obliged to be in the field, for Warwick fell upon his 
rear with alarming vehemence. They fought at Barnet on the 14th of 
April, 1471, in the midst of a mist, when poor Warwick was not only 
lost in the fog, but many of his friends were killed, and Edward 
obtained a decisive victory. The particulars of this battle have never 
been very accurately given, for the fog and the old chroniclers were 
almost equally dense; and between them the affair is involved in 
much obscurity. 

It is easier to quell sixty thousand men than to subdue one trouble¬ 
some woman, and Queen Margaret still gave “ a deal of trouble ” to 
the conqueror. She, however, ultimately fell into his hands, together 
with her son—one of the “ rising generation ” of that time—who, on 
being asked by Edward what he meant by entering the realm in arms, 
replied pertly, “ I came to preserve my father’s crown and my own 
inheritance.”—“ Did you indeed, you young jackanapes,” cried Edward, 


28-i 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


BOOK IV. 


“ then take that,” and he flicked the hoy’s nose with the thumb of a 
large gauntlet. The child set up a piercing yell, but this was not the 



Field of Battle (in a fog) near Barnet. 


worst of it, for some attendants, excited by the brutal example of their 
master, gave the lad a blow or two, which finished him. 

Edward returned to town, and sent Henry, with his queen, to the 
Tower, from which the latter was ransomed by her relatives; but the 
former having no friends to buy him off or bail him out, remained in 
custody. He died in a few weeks after his committal, and his death is 
attributed to the Duke of Gloucester, who, from the peculiar conformation 
of his back, had shoulders broad enough to bear all the stray crimes for 
which no other owner may have been forthcoming. Accordingly, every 
piece of iniquity that can be traced to no one in particular, is usually 
added to Gloucester’s huge catalogue of delinquencies. 

The Lancastrians were now regularly down, and every opportunity 
was taken for hitting them. Some were driven into exile, others were 
got rid of by more decided means, and a few, whose talents were worth 
saving, got purchased at a valuation, more or less fair, by the new 
government Sir John Fortescue, the Chief Justice to Henry VI. and 
the greatest lawyer of his time, was sold in this disreputable manner; 
for the judges of those days, unlike the pure occupants of the bench in 
our own, were as saleable as railway shares, and had their regular market 
price for any one by whom such an investment was desired. 

The prosperity of the House of York was now only marred by a 
quarrel between the dukes of Gloucester and Clarence. The latter had 





























CHAP. V.] 


EDWARD LAYS CLAIM TO FRANCE. 


285 


married Warwick’s eldest daughter, and claimed the whole property of 
his father-in-law, of which Gloucester naturally wanted a slice, and he 
struck up to Anne, a younger daughter, in order to derive some claim to 
a share of the family fortune. Clarence, anxious to baffle his brother, 
sent the young lady out to service as a cook, in London, when 
Gloucester disguised probably as a policeman—found her out, and ran 
away with her. He won her by alleging his heart to be incessantly on 
the beat, and by promising her the advantages of a superior station. 



Duke of Gloucester, disguised as a Policeman, discovering Lady Anne. 


He lodged her in the then rural lane of St. Martin’s, and the king 
ultimately arranged the difference between his brothers by assigning a 
handsome portion to Lady Anne, and leaving Clarence to take the rest; 
while the widowed Countess of Warwick, who had brought all the 
money into the family, was obliged to leave it there, without touching 
it, for she got nothing. 

In 1475 Edward began to form ambitious projects with regard to 
France, and sent off to Louis XI. one of those claims for the crown 
which some of the preceding kings of England had been in the habit 
of forwarding. The letter was written in terms of marvellous polite¬ 
ness, and Louis having read it, desired the herald who brought it to 
step into the next room, where he was treated with great affability. 
Louis complimented the letter-carrier in the most fulsome manner, 
recommending him to advise his master to withdraw his claim as futile 





































































































































280 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


and ridiculous. “ Bless you, lie don’t mind me,” was the modest reply 
of the herald; but Louis remarked that the words of such a sensible 
fellow must have considerable weight, and slipped three hundred 
crowns into his pouch, with a wink of intense significance. The herald 
was regularly taken aback, and his bewilderment increased when his 
Majesty, observing, “Dear me, what a shabby cloak you’ve got on, 
ordered three hundred yards of crimson velvet to be cut off from the 
best piece in the royal wardrobe. Garter—for such was the herald s 
rank—promised to do the very best he could; for the velvet had 
softened him down, or smoothed him over, to the side of Louis. 

Edward nevertheless made extensive preparations to smash the 
French king, and strained every nerve to get the sinews of war, which 
he did by insinuating himself into the favour of his people. He 
emptied their pockets with considerable grace, and was the first to give 
the attractive name of Benevolences to those grants which were merci¬ 
lessly extracted from the Parliament. Edward and Louis, though 
hating each other with the utmost cordiality, thought it prudent to 
negotiate—the former from mercenary motives, and the latter for the 
sake of peace and quiet. An interview was at last agreed upon, to take 
place at the bridge of Picquigny, near Amiens, across which a partition 
of railings had been thrown, to prevent treachery on either side. Louis 
came first, and looked through the bars, when Edward tripped grace 
fully up to the other side, bowing to within a foot of the ground, and 
paying a few commonplace compliments. Louis invited Edward to 
Paris, they shook hands through the bars, and the English king received 
a sordid bribe through the grating, “ which,” says the incorrigible 
Comines, “ was exceedingly grating to the feelings of some of his nobles.” 

Several cruelties disgraced the latter part of Edward’s reign; and 
one of the worst of his enormities was his treatment of Staceys and 
Burdett, two officers of the household of the Duke of Clarence. Stacey 
was accused of having dealings with the devil; but if he had, it was 
only the printer’s devil; for Stacey was a priest of the order of White- 
friars, and learned in the typographic art, which had recently been 
discovered. No proof unfavourable to Stacey could be produced, but 
he was put to the torture by being made to set up night and day, which 
made him curse the author of his misery Thomas Burdett, another 
gentleman of Clarence’s household, was tried as an accomplice to Stacey, 
and these unfortunate men, having had their heads cut off, “ died,” 
according to the Chroniclers, “protesting their innocence.” Clarence 
himself was the next victim, and on the 10th of January, 1478, 
he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords on a charge of 
having dealings with conjurors. It seems hard, in these days, when 
tricks of magic are exceedingly popular, that a person suspected of 
conjuring should be pursued with the vengeance of the law; and the 
hardship of the affair is particularly great in the case of Clarence, who 
was never known to make a plum-pudding in' his hat, or perform any 
other of the ingenious tricks which have gained money and fame for 


CHAV. V.J 


THE DEATH OF CLARENCE. 


287 


the "wizards of the present sera. The unfortunate Duke met all the 
charges against him with a flat denial, but he was found guilty, and 
sentence of death was passed upon him, on the 7th of February, 1478 
His execution was never publicly carried out, and rumour has accord¬ 
ingly been left to run riot among the thousand ways in which Clarence 
might have undergone his capital punishment. The usual mode of 
accounting for his death is by the suggestion, that his brothers left the 
matter to his own choice, and that he preferred drowning in a butt of 
Malmsey wine to any other fatal penalty. The only objection to this 
arrangement appears to be that which occurred to an excellent English 
king of modern times, when he wondered how the apple got into the 
dumpling. However capacious the butt may have been in which 
Clarence desired to be drowned, it is obvious that he never could have 
entered the cask through its only aperture, the bungliole. When we 
witness the marvel of an individual getting into a quart-bottle, we shall 
begin to have faith in the story that Clarence met his death in the 
manner alluded to. If the wine was already in the cask before Clarence 
was immersed, there could have been no admission, even on business, 
except through the bungliole, and it is not likely that the vessel could 
have been empty before the duke took his place for the purpose of 
undergoing a vinous shower-bath. 

Edward led for some time a life of luxury, which was now and then 
disturbed by wars with Scotland, though he never thought it worth his 
while to take the field in person, but always got his big brother, Richard 
Duke of Gloucester, to fight for him. Matters nevertheless took a 
fresh turn when the Duke of Albany, brother of James III., came over 
and declared he was entitled to the Scotch throne in preference to his 
elder relative. “ I mean to swear he is illegitimate,” said Albany, and 
he offered to give up Berwick to Edward, on condition of an army 
being lent to depose the reigning sovereign. A marriage with one of 
the English king’s daughters was also proposed by Albany, who 
“ thought it right to mention that he had two wives alreadybut he 
did not seem to anticipate any objection on that account. Albany and 
Gloucester were successful in most of their joint undertakings, but they 
did not fight very frequently, for a treaty was soon concluded. Until 
this arrangement was carried out, Albany made every warlike demon¬ 
stration, and produced a wholesome terror by the exhibition of a 
tremendous piece of artillery, familiarly known to us in these days as 
a cannon of the period. Its chief peculiarity was its aptitude— 
according to the engravings we have seen of it—for carrying cannon¬ 
balls considerably larger than the mouth of the piece itself, for we have 
often feasted our eyes upon very interesting pictures of a cannon-ball 
issuing from a cannon not half the circumference of the projected missile. 
Whether it is that in those days expanding ammunition was provided, 
which increased in bulk two-fold after leaving the cannon’s mouth, we 
are unable to say at this distant period; but the illuminations of the 
time undoubtedly present this striking phenomenon. The dust of ages 


283 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK TV. 


lies unfortunately on many of our facts, and though we might, it is true, 
take up a duster and wipe the dust of ages off, there is a pleasure in 
the imaginative which the actual could never realise. 

Edward having been duped by his allies in France, on some matters 
almost of a private character, took the deception so much to heart, that 
he put himself into a violent passion, and died of it with wondrous 
rapidity. Instead of a raging fever, he caught the fever of rage, and 
died on the 6th of April, 1483, in the forty-first year of his age, and 
twenty-first of his reign. The assassination of sovereigns v 7 as then so 
common, that Edward IV. lay in state for some days, to show that 
he had not come to his death by any but fair means, for he was a 
king that merited severe treatment, at least as much as some of his pre¬ 
decessors ; and it was, therefore, presumed that he might have come in 
for his share of that fatal violence which it was usual to bestow on kings 
in the early and middle periods of our history. In concluding our ac¬ 
count of this reign, we may, perhaps, be expected to give a character of 
Edward IY. ; but, ex nihilo nihil Jit, and upon this principle we are un¬ 
able to furnish a character for one who had lost in the lapse, or rather 
in the lap of time, whatever he may once have possessed of that 
important article. 



Cannon and Cannon-ball of the Period. 














































CHAP. VI.] 


EDWARD THE FIFTH. 


289 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH 


EDWARD THE FIFTH. 


ad the crown been always adapted to 
the head on which it devolves, the 
diadem would have been in very re¬ 
duced circumstances, when it descended 
on the baby brow of the fifth Edward. 
Almost bonneted by a bauble consi¬ 
derably too large for his head, and 
falling over his eyes, it was impossible 
that the boy-king could enjoy otherwise 
than a very poor look-out on his acces¬ 
sion to the sovereignty. 

He had been on a visit to his ma¬ 
ternal uncle, the Earl of Rivers, at 
Ludlow Castle ; but he was now placed 
under the protection of his paternal 
uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 
as a sort of apprentice to learn the 
business of government. Richard, who 
was at the head of an army in Scotland 
at his brother's death, marched with 
six hundred men to a maison cle deuil, 
where he insisted on having ready¬ 
made mourning for his followers. The astonished tradesman exclaiming, 
in the language of one of our modern poets, 



“ Fire minutes’ time is all we ask, 
To execute the mournful task,” 


prepared at once the melancholy outfit. Richard led his adherents to 
York, where a funeral service was performed, and the troops, looking 
like so many mutes, completely dumbfounded the populace. Their 
conduct and their clothes combined—for their designs seemed to be as 
dark and mysterious as their habits—obtained for these soldiers the 
unenviable name of the black-guards of the Duke of Gloucester. 

Richard’s next care was to swear loyalty and fealty to his young 
nephew; which went far towards proving the absence of both, for those 
who wish a little of anything to go a great way generally make the utmost 
possible display of it. Notwithstanding the continued show of attach¬ 
ment evinced by the uncle for the nephew, it soon began to be noticed 
that Richard was a good deal like a snow-ball, for he picked up adherents 
wherever he moved; and as he went rolling about the country, he soon 

u 























































290 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


swelled into a formidable size, with the band that encircled him. He, 
however, calmed suspicion by declaring that he was only collecting 
supernumeraries for his nephew’s coronation. The fact is, that Richard 
was all the time plotting with that discontented fellow Buckingham, the 
well-known malcontent, of whom it has been justly said that he liked 
nothing nor nobody. 

Gloucester arrived at Northampton on the 22nd of April, 1483, 
about the same time that Rivers and Gray had “tooled” the baby-king 
by easy stages as far as Stony Stratford. The two lords came to 
Northampton to salute Richard, who asked them to supper at his 
hotel, when Buckingham dropped in and joined the party. The four 
noblemen passed the evening together very pleasantly, for the song, the 
sentiment, the joke and the jug, the pitcher and the pun, were passed 
about until long after midnight. Stretchers for two were in readiness, 
to take home Gray, who looked dreadfully blue, and Rivers, who was 
half-seas-over; while the two dukes, who had kept tolerably sober, 
remained in secret debate, for they did 

“ Not go home till morning, 

Till daylight did appear.” 

On the morrow the whole party started off, apparently very good friends, 
towards Stony Stratford, to meet the young king, who was immediately 
grasped by his uncle Gloucester. 

The royal infant naturally gave a sort of squeak at the too affectionate 
clutch of his uncle, who, pretending to think that Gray and Rivers had 
alienated the hoy’s affection from himself, ordered them both into arrest, 
when Gloucester and Buckingham fell obsequiously on their knees 
before the child, whom they saluted as their sovereign. Their first care 
was to ascertain who were his favourites, for the purpose of getting rid 
of them. Two of the royal servants, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir 
Richard Hawse, were dismissed not only without a month’s warning, but 
as they were sent off to prison at once, “ suiting themselves with other 
situations ” was utterly impossible. Young Edward was kept as a kind 
of prisoner, and Elizabeth, his mother, when she heard the news, set off 
to Westminster, with her second son and the five young ladies—her 
daughters—after her. The queen-mother had no party in London, and 
her arrival with her quintette of girls created no sensation. 

In a few days young Edward entered the city, but more as a captive 
than as a king, and lodgings were immediately taken for him in the 
Tower, where he was to be boarded, and alas ! done for by his loving 
uncle. Gloucester was named Protector to the youthful sovereign, and 
moved to number one, Crosby Place, Bishopsgate (the number on the 
door), where, instead of behaving himself like a gentleman “ living 
private,” he held councils, while Hastings, who began to doubt the 
duke’s loyalty, gave a series of opposition parties in the Tower. At one 
of these, Richard, who had never received a card of invitation, walked 
in, and voted himself into the chair with the most consummate impu- 


CHAP. VI.] 


RICHARD VISITS HASTINGS IN THE TOWER, 


29 J 


dence. In vain did Hastings intimate that it was a private room, or 
that Gloucester must have mistaken the house, for there he sat, 
exclaiming “ Oh no, not at all,” and begging the company to make 
themselves at home, as he fully meant to do. He was particularly 
facetious to the Bishop of Ely, asking after his garden in Holborn, and 
proposing to the prelate to send for a plate of strawberries. These were 



The liishop of Kly presenting a pottle of Strawberries to the Duke of Glo’ster, 


soon brought, and Richard indulged in “ potations pottle deep ” of straw¬ 
berries and cream, declaring all the while that the fruit was capital, and 
that of all wind instruments there was none he liked to have a blow out 
upon so much as the hautboy. The Protector having gone away for a 
short time, returned in a very ill humour, with his countenance looking 
exceedingly sour, as if the strawberries he had eaten had disagreed with 
him and the cream had curdled. He gave his lips several severe bites, 
and altogether appeared exceedingly snappish. Presently he asked 
what those persons deserved who had compassed or imagined his 
destruction. Hastings observed, “ Why, that is so completely out of my 
compass that I can scarcely guess, but I don’t mind saying off-hand that 
death is the least punishment they merit.” The Protector declared his 

u 2 






































































































































































292 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


brother’s wife—meaning the queen—and Mrs. Shore had between 
them twisted his body, which would, indeed, have been doing him a 
very bad turn; and, pulling up his sleeve, he exhibited his left arm, 
declaring there was something not at all right about it. The council 
agreed that the limb was a good deal damaged, and Hastings added that 
“ if Mrs. Shore and the queen had really had a hand in Richard’s arm, 
they certainly deserved grievous punishment.” “What!” roared the 
Protector, “ do you answer me with ‘ ifs ’ ? I tell you they have, and no 
mistake.” Whereupon he banged his fist down upon the table with 
tremendous violence, giving himself as well as Hastings a frightful rap 
on the knuckles. Thereupon a door opened, and “ men in harness came 
rushing in,” according to More, and, being in harness, they proceeded to 
fix the saddle on the right horse immediately. The Protector exclaimed 
“ I arrest thee, traitor,” and pointed to Hastings, who cried out “ Eh ! 
What! Oh! Pooh! Stuff! You’re joking! Arrest me? What 
have I done ? Fiddlestick! ” To pursue the elegant description given 
by More, we must add that “another let fly at Stanley,” who bobbed 
down his head and crawled under the table. The officers, after some 
trouble, pulled him out by the leg—having first drawn off his boot in a 



Arrest of Lord Hastings and Lord Stanley. 


futile attempt to secure him—and carried linn away in custody 
Richard then had another turn at Hastings, who was in a sort of 
hysterical humour, at one moment treating the matter as a joke, and at 











































































































































































CHAP. VI.] THE DUKE OF YORK SENT TO THE TOWER 293 

another not knowing exactly what to make of it. “ You may laugh,” at 
length roared Richard, “ but I ’ll tell you what it is, my lord Hastings, 
I ’ve ordered my dinner to be ready by the time I get home, but by St. 
Paul I 11 not touch a mouthful—and I own I'm deuced hungry—until 
I ve seen your head.” 

Hastings replied that such a condition was easily fulfilled, and 
thrusting his head into Richard’s face exclaimed “ There, my lord, 
you’ve seen my head, so now go home as soon as you like, and get your 
dinner.” The Protector pushing him aside, expressed contempt for the 
paltry quibble, and amended the affidavit by inserting the word “ off” 
after the word “ head,” and exclaiming “ I ’ll see Hastings’ head off 
before I touch a bit of dinner.” Hastings was seized, and the purveyors 
for the Protector soon brought him the avant gout which he had 
required as a provocative to his appetite. Richard’s violence had thus 
come suddenly to a head, and Earl Rivers, with Sir Thomas Vaughan 
and Sir Richard Hawse, were executed on the same day at Pontefract. 

A few days after these executions, Richard went to the sanctuary at 
Westminster, arm-in-arm with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and called 
for the little Duke of York, who, they said, would be wanted for the 
coronation. Consent was somewhat unwillingly given, and Richard 
having got the child away, made him a prisoner in the Tower. An 
affecting anecdote is told of the ruse that was resorted to by Gloucester 
and his friend, the Archbishop, to entrap their juvenile victim into 
going quietly with them towards the gloomy scene of his destined cap- 
tivity. They lured him on from place to place by pretending that they 
were going to treat him to some wonderful show, and they took all sorts 
of roundabout ways to prevent him from suspecting the point they were 
really driving at. When the poor child was becoming tiled of his walk, 
and surrounding objects had lost the attraction of novelty, he began 
crying after his mamma, with that filial force which is peculiar to the 
earliest period of infancy. Gloucester began to fear they should get a 
mob after them, if, as he savagely expressed himself, “ the brat continued 
to howl,” and the little fellow was promised, for the purpose of 
“ stopping his mouth,” that he should see his mother immediately 
After walking him nearly off his little legs through back streets and 
alleys, they brought him out upon Tower Hill, and Richard, no longer 
disguising the fact that he was acting the part of the cruel uncle, 
snatched up in his arms the trembling child, who presently found 
himself in one of the gloomy apartments of the Tower. 

Richard’s next artifice was to practise the “ moral dodge,” which 
seldom fails to tell upon an indiscriminating multitude. Jane Shore, 
who had been seduced by the late king, was fixed upon as a mark for 
plunder and persecution by Richard, who first robbed the poor woman 
of all she had and then sent her to prison. He professed to be so 
shocked at some of the incidents of her past life, that, as a moral agent 
or acting member of society for the suppression of vice, he could not 
allow her to escape without some heavy punishment. She was proceeded 


294 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK IV. 


against in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and ordered to walk about London 
with a lighted rushlight in her hand and wearing nothing but a pair of 
sheets or a counterpane. The Hammersmith Ghost and Spring-heeled 
Jack are the only legitimate successors of Jane Shore in this remarkable 
proceeding, and might have cited her case as a precedent for their own 
unlawful practices. 

Richard also entered into an arrangement with Doctor Shaw, a 
popular preacher, who was to preach down, or, as it was then called, 
depreachiate the two young princes. The Reverend Doctor then threw a 
doubt on their legitimacy, and declared their late father Edward was not a 
bit like his reputed father, the Duke of York, and pulling out two enormous 
caricatures from under his gown, he asked the crowd whether any likeness 
could be traced between them. “ Instead of the eyes,” he exclaimed, 
“ being as like as two peas, these eyes are not even as like as two 
gooseberries !” He then asked his hearers to compare notes by com¬ 
paring the noses of the two portraits he held in his hand; and, pointing 
to the picture of Richard, Duke of York, he reminded them that the 
bridge of the nose was exactly like that of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. 
“ There, my friends,” he roared, “there is a bridge that I think there 
is no possibility of getting over !” The allusion created a laugh, but no 
conviction ; and the failure was rendered more annoying by the 
Protector not arriving in time, as had been previously arranged, to 
enable Dr. Shaw to point out the striking likeness. By some mistake 
Richard missed the cue for his entrance, and did not come in until the 
comparison had passed, when upon Shaw endeavouring to recur to it, 
the trick was so obvious that the people only stared at each other, or 
passed their right thumbs significantly over their left shoulders. The 
Protector vented his disappointment and anger on the preacher, 
whom he denounced as an old meddler who did not know what he was 
talking about, and Doctor Shaw sneaked off, amid derision, shouts of 
“ pshaw ! pshaw ! ” and the jeers of the populace. 

On the following Tuesday Richard got*-his friend Buckingham to go 
down to Guildhall to give him a regular good puff, at a meeting of the 
citizens. Buckingham’s speech was listened to with a good deal of 
apathy, and there were numerous cries of “ Cut it short,” responded to 
with a faint shout of “ Hear him out,” and an occasional ejaculation of 
“Now then, stupid !” Buckingham persevered, and at the close of his 
address somebody threw up a bonnet, exclaiming “ Long live King 
Richard!” The bonnet belonged evidently to a person of straw, and 
excited little more than ridicule. 

The speech of Buckingham to the citizens assembled in Guildhall, 
was a rare specimen of the eloquence of humbug; and it evidently 
formed a model for the discourses sent forth by auctioneers from the 
rostrum at a later period. The whole system, indeed, pursued by the 
Duke of Buckingham on the memorable occasion of his putting up the 
claim of Richard to the suffrages of the bystanders, was evidently in 
accordance with that by which bad lots are frequently got off at the 


CHAP. VI.] 


THE CITIZENS OFFER RICHARD THE CROWN. 


295 


highest prices. The art with which Buckingham pretended to recog¬ 
nise sympathy in the crowd, and bowed to vacancy with an exclamation 
of, “ Thank you, sir,” when there was nobody to thank, might have 
ranked with some of the highest auctioneering efforts of our own era. 
When there was a faint shout of “Long live King Richard,”.from a 
solitary individual, Buckingham adroitly multiplied the exclamation by 
declaring that he heard it “ in two places,” though he knew perfectly - 
well that a solitary puffer, in his own employ, had been the only one 
who raised a shout for Gloucester. “ What shall I say for Richard ?” 
he lustily vociferated. “ Look at him, gentlemen, before you bid. 
There’s nothing spurious about him. Come, gentlemen, give me a 
bidding.” At this juncture, one of the Duke’s touters cried out, from 
the bottom of the hall, “ I 'll bid a crown,” and a slight titter arising, 
Buckingham took advantage of the circumstance to assert, that “ a 
crown was bid for Richard in several places at once;” whereupon the 
tyrant was said to have been accepted at that price, and the business of 
the day concluded. 

On the next day a deputation was got up to wait on Richard at his 
lodgings, when he at first declined seeing them. His servant returned 
to say the gentlemen particularly wished an interview, and Gloucester 



The Citizens offeriiu 7 the Crown to Richard 

































































296 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


desired they might be shown up, when Buckingham and a few of the 
deputation were admitted to his presence. They handed him a paper, 
inviting and pressing him to accept the Crown ; but he observed, with 
assumed modesty, “ that if he had it, he really should not know what 
to do with it.” “Clap it on your head, of course,” said Buckingham, 
and, suiting the action to the word, he thrust the bauble on the brow of 
his friend, observing, “ Upon my honour, he looks well in it, don’t he, 
Shaw?” and he turned to the Lord Mayor for approval. Richard, 
however, shook his head, and remarked, that “ he could not think of 
it;” when Buckingham, by a happy turn, suggested that “they had 
thought of it for him, and therefore, he might as well do it first and 
think of it afterwards.” “ But the little Princes,” remarked Richard, 
“ whom I love so much.” This caused Buckingham to say, in the 
name of all present, that “they had determined not to have the little 
Princes at any price.” Upon this, Gloucester replied, “that he must 
meet the wishes of the people, and if they must have him, they must, 
but he, really, had a good deal rather not;” when, amid a quantity of 
significant winking on all sides, an end was put to the conference. 

This scene was enacted on the 24th of June, 1483, which was the 
last day of the nominal reign of the fifth Edward. It is impossible to 
give any character of this unfortunate king, whose sovereignty was 
almost limited to the walls of his own nursery. He might sometimes 
have played at sitting on a throne and holding a sceptre in his hand, 
but he never exercised the smallest power. He may, upon one or two 
occasions, have been allowed to dissolve Parliament; but it was only in 
the form of the cake so called, which he might, perhaps, be permitted 
to dissolve by the force of suction 


CHAP. VJ1.J 


RICHARD THE THIRD. 


297 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. 

RICHARD THE THIRD. 

ichard, on coming to the throne, 
rushed into Westminster Hall, 
and took his seat on a sort of 
marble slab or mantel-piece, be¬ 
tween the great Lord Howard 
and the Duke of Suffolk. The 
precious trio looked like a set of 
chimney ornaments, of which 
Richard formed the centre. He 
declared that he commenced his 
reign in that place, because it 
had been once a judgment-seat, 
and he was anxious to administer 
justice to his people. Ten days 
after, on the 6th of July, he was 
crowned in Westminster Abbey, 
and to prevent any murmurs at 
his usurpation, he was lavish of 
gifts, promotion, and bribery. The 
Duke of Norfolk, the celebrated 
jockey mentioned by Shakspeare, 
who had put Richard in training for the throne, became Earl Marshal, 
and his son was created Earl of Surrey, in honour, perhaps, of the 
surreptitious manner in which the crown had been obtained for his 
master Richard. The Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely were 
set at liberty, “ which caused them to dance with joy,” according to one 
of the chroniclers, though we cannot imagine a pair of prelates indulging 
in Terpsichorean diversions on their release from prison. 

In the course of the summer, Richard made a royal progress, and was 
enthusiastically received, though it is believed that much of the enthu¬ 
siasm was got up by frequent rehearsals with a set of supernumeraries, 
who were sent on before from town to town, to give a reception to the 
new sovereign. If Richard was expected to arrive anywhere at two, the 
populace would be called at one, to run through—in rehearsal—the 
cheers and gestures of satisfaction that were required to give brilliance 
to the usurper’s entry. When he arrived at York, a wish was expressed 
by the inhabitants to see a coronation; and though the ceremony had 
already been performed in London, it was announced that the spec¬ 
tacle would be repeated, “ by particular desire of several families of 
distinction.” 


































298 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK IV. 

While Richard’s starring expedition was most successful in the 
provinces, things in London were by no means looking up, for con¬ 
spiracies were being formed to release the two young princes from the 
Tower. The usurper not relishing these proceedings, sent a certain 
John Green—whose unsuspecting innocence has made viridity synony¬ 
mous with stupidity ever since—as the bearer of a message, the purport of 
which he was wholly unconscious of. It was addressed to Sir Thomas 
Brackenbury, the Governor of the Tower, requesting him to put to death 
the two royal children, by smothering them—in onions, or anything else 
that might be found convenient. Brackenbury refused the commission, 
not so much out of regard to the little princes as from fear on his own 
account, and he sent back the monosyllable “ No ” as an answer to the 
sovereign. Green, who knew not the purport of the message, returned 
with the curt reply, and upon his reiterating “ No ” as all he was desired 
to say, Richard angrily desired him “ not to show his nose again at 
court for a considerable period.” The tyrant was not, however, to be 
daunted, and he called his Master of the Horse, Sir James Tyrrel, 
whom he desired to go and lock every door in the Tower, and put the 
keys in his pocket. One night in August, Tyrrel took with him a fel¬ 
low named Miles Forrest, a professional assassin, and John Dighton, an 
amateur, “ a big, broad, square, and strong knave,” who, notwithstanding 
his squareness, was living on the cross for a long period. The precious 
trio went together to the Tower, and Tyrrel waiting at the door, Miles 
Forrest entered with John Dighton, who jointly smothered the children 
in the bed-clothes. 

Dighton and Forrest entered with savage earnestness into this horrible 
transaction, and conducted themselves after the cruel fashion of a clown 
and pantaloon in a pantomime when an infant falls into their formi¬ 
dable clutches. Dighton danced on the bed, while Forrest flung himself 
across it with fearful vehemence. Tyrrel, who was standing outside, 
acted the part of an undertaker in this truly black job, and buried the 
princes at the foot of the staircase 

Various accounts have been given of this atrocious deed, and anti¬ 
quarians have quarrelled about the form of the bed the princes used to 
sleep upon. Some declare it was a turn-up, in which the children were 
suddenly inclosed; whilst others affirm that the princes had the thread 
of their existence cut on that useful form of bedstead familiarly known 
as the scissors. Thus, to use the language of the philosopher, a feather¬ 
bed and pillows were made to bolster up the title of Richard, who from 
his artifice was exceedingly likely to have recourse to such a downy 
expedient. We may be excused for adding from the same high, 
authority we have taken the liberty to quote, that this assassination on 
a palliasse was an act that nothing could palliate. 

Richard, by whom the outward decencies of life were very scrupulously 
observed, in order to make up for the inward deficiencies of his mind, 
determined to go into mourning for the young princes, and repaired to 
the same maison de deuil which he had honoured with his patronage on 


CHAP. Vll.l 


RICHMOND COMPETES FOR THE CROWN. 


$99 


a former occasion, when requiring the “ trapping of woe ” for himself 
and his retainers on the death of his dear brother. 



The Duke of Gloucester goes into mourning for his little nephews. 


Another competitor now appeared for the crown, in the person of 
Henry Tudor, Esquire, commonly called the Earl of Richmond, who 
came with a drawn sword in his hand and a pedigree already drawn up 
in his pocket. He was considered to represent the line of Lancaster by 
right of his mother, who was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, 
whose extreme tallness proved him to be a worthy scion of the house to 
which the title of Lanky-shire—as it then might have been spelled— 
was obviously appropriate. In order to strengthen Richmond’s party 
and give him a spice of Yorldsm, a marriage was proposed with 
Elizabeth, of York, on the same principle that beef is sometimes cut 
with a hammy knife to give it a flavour Richmond was joined by 

















































































































































300 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[LOOK IV. 


several nobles hitherto favourable to Richard, and even Buckingham, 
who had been indebted to him for wealth and office, suddenly turned 
against him. When Richard heard the news he put a price on the 
heads of all the leaders of the insurrection ; and Buckingham’s head, 
though a very empty one, was ticketed at a considerable figure. 

Henry, Earl of Richmond, appeared with a fleet off Devonshire, but 
finding no one on the coast to meet him, he sailed back to St. Malo. 
Buckingham, who ought to have been on the look-out, was blundering 
about the right bank of the Severn, which he was unable to cross in con 
sequence of the rains, when his army, finding themselves short of rations, 
declined continuing such a very irrational enterprise. Buckingham 
was left without a man, except his own servant—a fellow of the name of 
Banister—upon whose fidelity he threw himself. He soon found that he 
had been leaning upon a fragile prop, for this Banister broke down and 
betrayed his miserable master. Buckingham was accordingly captured, 
and sneakingly solicited an interview with Richard III., who, on hearing 
of his being taken, coolly drew on his glove and roared with a stentorian 
voice, “ Off with his head !—so much for Buckingham !” 

Richard now came to town, and summoned a parliament, which was 
exceedingly complaisant; declaring him the lawful sovereign, by birth, 
by election, by coronation, by consecration, and by inheritance. Thus 
the usual attempt was made to make up by quantity for the deficiency 
as to quality in the title of the usurper, and the Princedom of Wales 
was settled on his boy Edward. Attainders were dealt out pretty freely 
among Richard’s opponents, who were pronounced traitors in the usual 
form, which was kept to be filled up with the name of the unsuccessful 
party; while oaths of loyalty were always to be had—in blank—for the 
use of that numerous class which followed the crown with the fidelity of 
the needle to the pole,—the pole being the head that happened to be 
wearing —pro tern .—the precious bauble. 

Richard, being afraid that Richmond would gain strength by the 
project of marriage with Elizabeth of York, determined on marrying 
the young lady himself ; an idea which both herself and her intriguing 
old mother most indelicately jumped at. The king being already 
married, difficulties arose, but it was proposed to poison Lady Anne, 
which, as quack medicines had not been yet invented, was a somewhat 
difficult process. There was no specific then in existence for curing 
every disease, or the matter might have been arranged at once; nor had 
the fatal art of punning become known, or Richard might have placed 
the author of the triple jeu de mot in attendance upon the Lady Anne, to 
be, in time, the death of her. The quarrelsome and cat-like disposition 
of this unhappy female may account for the tenacity of life which she 
exhibited; and the young Elizabeth kept continually writing up to 
inquire why the queen took so much time in dying. It was now the 
middle of February 1484, and Lady Anne was still alive; but her 
obstinacy was soon cured by her husband, and in the course of March 
she was got rid of. Richard immediately opened to his friends and 


CHAP. VII.] RICHMOND PREPARES TO ATTACK ENGLAND. 


301 


admirers liis scheme for marrying Elizabeth; but they strongly opposed 
it, and he then pretended that he had never meant anything of the 
sort, but that the minx—for as such he stigmatised the young lady—had 
for some time persisted in setting her cap at him. 

Henry was now preparing to make a descent upon England, when 
Richard did all he could to damage him, by proclamations, in which 
Richmond was alluded to as “ one Tudor,” and his adherents were 
stigmatised as cut-throats and extortioners. Had this been the fact, it 
was certainly a case of pot pitching into kettle; and the usurping sauce¬ 
pan poured out its sauce with wondrous prodigality. Numerous were 
the expedients resorted to for the purpose of damaging the cause of 
Henry Tudor. Descriptions of his person were issued, and the people 
were warned against admitting to their confidence the individual of 
whom a caricature representation, or rather mis-representation, was sent 
abroad, to give an unfavourable idea of Richmond’s exterior. Among other 



schemes to obtain popularity, Richard affected the character of a practical 
man, and personally attended to the administration of justice in a few 
cases, where, having no interest of his own to serve, he gave somewhat 
fair decisions. 





































302 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


His efforts were now directed to putting the country in a state of 
defence, and he sent his friends to the coast to bear the brunt of the 
first attack, while he smuggled himself up pretty comfortably in the 
middle of a large army in the centre of the kingdom. Several of his 
friends betrayed him, while others sent excuses on the score of ill health, 
and Stanley apologised in a coarse note, declaring he was confined to 
his bed by “a sweating sickness.” Richard merely muttered, “Oh! 
indeed, and I suppose he sends me a wet blanket to prove the fact; ” 
but he, nevertheless, ordered Stanley to be closely looked after. Henry 
landed at Milford Haven on the 7 th of August, 1484, with about five 
thousand men, and on the 21st of the month the two armies met in a 
field near Bosworth. There a battle was fought, of which Shakespeare 
has furnished a series of pictures, which, on the stage, attempts are 
frequently made to realise. The contest, according to this authority, 
appears to have been carried on amid a mysterious flourish of drums and 
trumpets, to which soldiers, on both sides, kept running to and fro, 
without doing any serious mischief. Richmond’s people, to the extent 
of about ten, then encountered about an equal number of Richard’s 
adherents, and striking together, harmlessly, the tips of some long pikes, 
the two parties became huddled together, and retired in the same 
direction, apparently to talk the matter over and effect a compromise. 

The field then seems to have become perfectly clear, when Richard 
ran across it, fearfully out of breath, fencing with a foil at nothing, and 
calling loudly for a horse in exchange for his kingdom, though there was 
not such a thing as a quadruped to be had for love or money. He then 
seems to have shouted lustily for Richmond, and to have asserted that 
he had already killed him five different times, from which it is to be 
inferred that the crafty Henry had no less than half a dozen suits of 
armour all made alike to mislead his antagonist. Richard then rushed 
away, with a hop, skip and jump, after some imaginary foe; and 
Richmond occupied the field ; when Richard, happening to come back, 
they stood looking at each other for several seconds. We may account 
for Gloucester’s temporary absence by referring to the historical authori¬ 
ties, for he had probably chosen the interval in question to make Sir 
John Cheney bite the dust, a most unpleasant process for Sir John, who 
must have ground his teeth horribly with a mouthful of gravel. 

The two competitors for the throne then stood upon their guard, and 
a beautiful fencing-matcli ensued, to which there were no witnesses. A 
few complimentary speeches were exchanged between some of the home 
thrusts, and the combatants occasionally paused to take an artistical view of 
each others’ gallant bearing. Business is, however, business in the long 
run, which, in tills instance, ended in Richard being run through by the 
victorious Richmond. The soldiers of the latter, who appear to have 
been waiting behind a hedge to watch in whose favour fortune might 
turn, ran forward at the triumph of their master being complete, and 
formed a picture round him, while Stanley, taking the battered crown which 
Richard had worn in battle, placed it—in its smashed state looking like 





























































































































































































































































































































































CHAP. VII.] THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FTELD. 303 

a gilt-edged opera hat—on the head of Richmond. The manner in 
which Stanley became possessed of the ill-used bauble is quite in 
accordance with the dramatic colouring that tinges and tinfoils this 
beautiful period of our history It is said that an old soldier kicked 
against something in an adjacent field, and began actually playing at 
football with the regal diadem. Placing his foot inside the rim, he 
sent it flying into the air, when a ray of sunshine, lighting on one of 
the jewels, revealed to him that it was no ordinary plaything he had got 
hold of. Running with it as fast as he could to Stanley, the honest 
fellow placed it in his lordship’s hands, with a cry of “See what I have 
found ! ” after the manner of the Pantaloon under similar circumstances 
in a pantomime. Stanley was about to put it in his pocket, when 
another noble roared out, “ Oh, I ’ll tell ! ” and a cry of “ Somebody 
coming! ” being raised, the diadem was ingeniously dropped on to the 
head of Richmond. The crown was fearfully scrunched by the numerous 
heavy blows its wearer had received, and Henry VII., taking it off for a 
moment to push it a little into shape, exclaimed—half mournfully, half 
jocularly—“Well, well, to the punishment of the usurper this indenture 
witnesseth.” The Duke of Norfolk—our old friend the jockey—shared 
his master’s fate, or rather had a similar fate all to himself, though 
as he received the fatal crack he expressed a wish that he might be 
allowed to split the difference. 

The fierce and interesting battle we are now speaking of was one of 
those short but sharp transactions, which leave their marks no less upon 
posterity than upon the heads and helmets of the warriors engaged in 
the fearful contest. The great importance of the event deserves some¬ 
thing more than the prosaic narrative in which we have recorded it; 
and having sent our boy to the Pierian spring with a pitcher, for the 
purpose of getting it filled with the source of inspiration, we proceed to 
attempt a poetical account of the Battle of Bosworth. The celebrated 
Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay has, we acknowledge, kindled our 
poetic fire, by his “Lays of Ancient Rome;” and our imagination having 
been once set in a biaze it must needs continue to burn, unless, by 
blowing out our brains, we put a suicidal extinguisher on the flame. 
Philosophy, however, teaches us that “ L'ame est un feu quit faut 
nourrir and alere flammam is a suggestion so familiar to our youth, 
that we do not scruple to throw an entire scuttle of the coals of 
encouragement upon the incipient flame of our poetic genius. We 
know that poetry is often an idle pursuit, and that he is generally lazy 
who addicts himself to the composition of lays, but the Battle of Bos¬ 
worth Field is an event which fully deserves to have poetical justice 
done to it. Following the example of the illustrious model, whose style 
we consider it no humility, but rather an audacity, to imitate, we will 
suppose the recital to be made some time after the event has occurred, 
and we will imagine some veteran stage manager giving directions for, 


* Voltaire. 


304 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


or superintending the rehearsal of, a grand dramatic representation of 
one of the grandest and—if we may be allowed the privilege of a 
literary smasher in coining a word—the dramaticest battles in English 
history 

“ Ho: trumpets, sound a note or two— 

Ho : prompter, clear the stage ! 

A chord, there, in the orchestra : 

The battle we must wage. 

Your gallant supers marshal out— 

Yes, I must see them all; 

The rather lean, the very stout, 

The under-sized, the tall: 

The Yorkites in the centre, 

Lancastrians in the rear, 

Not yet the staff must enter— 

The stage, I charge ye, clear! 

Those warriors in the green-room 
Must have an extra drill; 

Where’s Richard’s gilt-tipp’d baton ? 

They charged it in the bill. 

Those ensigns with the banners 
Must stand the other way, 

Or else how is it possible 
The white rose to display ? ” 

Thus spoke the old stage manager, 

The day before the night 
Richard and Richmond on the field 
Of Bos worth had to fight. 

And thus the light-heel’d call-boy 
Upon that day began 
To read of properties a list— 

’Twas thus the items ran :— 

“Four dozen shields of cardboard, 

With paper newly gilt, 

Six dozen goodly swords, and one 
With practicable hilt; 

The practicable hilt, of course, 

Must be adroitly plann’d, 

That when ’tis struck with mod’rate force. 

’Twill break in Richard’s hand. 

Eight banners—four with roses white, 

And four with roses red— 

Six halberds, and a canopy 
To hang o’er Richard’s head; 


CHAP. VII.] 


THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD 


805 


A sofa for tlie tyrant’s tent, 

An ironing-board at back, 

Whereon the ghosts may safely stand., 
Who come his dreams to rack ; 

A lamp, suspended in the air 
By an invis’ble wire, 

And—for the ghosts to vanish in— 
Two ounces of blue fire.” 

* * * * 
Thus spoke the gallant call-boy, 

The boy of many fights ; 

Who’d seen a battle often fought 
Fifty successive nights. 

* % * * 
The moment now approaches, 

The interval is short, 

Before the fearful battle 

Of Bosworth must be fought; 

Now Richmond’s gallant soldiers 
Are waiting at the wing, 

Expecting soon that destiny 
Its prompter’s bell will ring; 

Now at the entrance opposite 
The troops of Richard stand, 

Two dozen stalwart veterans— 

A small, but gallant band. 

Hark ! at the sound of trumpets, 

They raise a hearty cheer, 

Their voices have obtained their foroc 
From recent draughts of beer 

Their leader, the false Richard, 

Is lying in his tent, 

But ghosts to fret and worry him 
Are to his bedside sent. 
Convulsively he kicks and starts, 

He cannot have repose, 

A guilty conscience breaks his rest, 

By tugging at his toes. 

A gentleman in mourning, 

With visage very black, 

When the tent curtain draws aside, 

Is standing at the back ; 

And then a woman—stately, 

But pale as are the dead— 

Stood, in the darkness of-the night, 

To scold him in his bed. 


x 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


|BOOK IV 


aor> 


There came they, and there preached they, 
In most lugubrious way, 

Delivering curtain lectures 
Until the east was grey ; 

Or rather, till the prompter, 

Who has the proper cue, 

Had quite consumed his quantity 
Of fire, so bright and blue. 

The conscience-stricken Richard 
Now kicks with greater force, 

Rears up, and plunges from his couch, 
Insisting on a horse ; 

When, hearing from the village cock 
A blithe and early scream, 

He straightway recollects himself, 

And finds it all a dream. 

5*C * * * 

Now, on each side, the leaders 
Long for the battle’s heat, 

But, by some luckless accident, 

The armies never meet; 

We hear them both alternately 
Talking extremely large, 

But never find them, hand to hand. 

Mixed in the deadly charge. 

“ March on, my friends ! ” cries Richmond, 

“ True tigers let us be; 

Advance your standards, draw your swords— 
On, friends, and follow me ! ” 

’Tis true, they follow him indeed, 

But then, the way they go 
Is just the way they ’re not at all 
Likely to meet the foe. 

So Richard, with his “ soul in arms,” 

Is “ eager for the fray,” 

But, with a hop, a skip, and jump, 

Runs off—the other way. 

He’s to the stable gone, perchance, 
Forgetting, in his flurry, 

He has kept waiting all this time 
His clever cob, White Surrey. 

The brute is “ saddled for the field,” 

But never gains the spot, 

For on his way Death knocks him down 
In one—the common—lot. 


CHAP VII.J 


the battle of bosworth field 


307 



Richard III. and his celebrated charger, White Surrey, 


Richard, a momentary pang 
At the bereavement feels ; 

But, being thrown upon his hands, 

Starts briskly to his heels. 

And now the angry tyrant 
Perambulates the field, 

Calling on each ideal foe 
To fight him or to yield. 

“ What, ho ! ” he cries, “ Young Richmond! " 
But, mid the noise of drums, 

Young Richmond doesn’t hear him— 

At least he never comes. 

Now louder, and still louder, 

Rise from the darken’d field 
The braying of the trumpets, 

The clang of sword and shield 
But shame upon both armies ! 

For, if the truth be known, 

’Tis not each others’ shields they smite— 

The clang is all their own ; 

x 2 
























































































































































































































3u8 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK IT 


For six of Richmond’s people 
Are standing in a row, 

(Behind the scenes), and with their swords 
They give their shields a blow. 

Wild shouts of “ Follow, follow! ” 

Are raised in murmuring strain, 

To represent the slayer’s rage, 

The anguish of the slain. 

But now, in stern reality, 

The battle seems to rage ; 

For Catesby comes to tell the world 
How fiercely they engage. 

He gives a grand description, 

And says the feud runs high : 

We won’t suppose that such a man 
Would stoop to tell a lie. 

He says the valiant king “ enacts 
More wonders than a man ; ” 

In fact, is doing what he can’t, 

Instead of what he can. 

That all on foot the tyrant fights, 

Seeks Richmond, and will follow him 
Into the very “ throat of Death ”— 

No wonder Death should swallow him! 

Now meeting on a sudden, 

Each going the opposite way, 

Richard and Richmond both advance, 
Their valour to display. 

Says Richard, “ Now for one of us. 

Or both, the time is come.” 

Says Richmond, “ Till I’ve settled this. 

By Jove, I won’t go home.” 

One, two, strikes Richard with his foil. 
When Richmond, getting fierce, 

Repeats three, four, and on they go, 

With parry, quatre, and tierce. 

Till suddenly the tyrant 
Is brought unto a stand; 

His weapon snaps itself in twain, 

The hilt is in his hand. 

The gen’rous Richmond turns aside, 

Till some one at the wing 
Another weapon to the foe 
Good-naturedly doth fling. 




CHAP. VII.] THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD 309 

Richard advances with a rush ; 

Richmond in turn retires ; 

Their weapons, every time they meet, 

Flash with electric fires. 

Posterity, that occupies 
Box, gallery, and pit, 

Applauds the pair alternately, 

As each one makes a hit. 

Now “ Bravo Richmond! ” is the cry, 

Till Richard plants a blow 
With good effect, when to his side 
Round the spectators go. 

As fickle still as when at first, 

The nation, undecided, 

Was ’twixt the Roses White and Red 
Alternately divided, 

So does the modern audience 
Incline, with favour strongest. 

To him who in the contest seems 
Likely to last the longest. 

Then harsher sounds the trumpet, 

And deeper rolls the drum, 

Till both have had enough of it, 

When Richard must succumb 
Flatly he falls upon the ground, 

Declaring, when he’s down, 

He envies Richmond nothing else. 

Except the vast renown 
Which he has certainly acquired 
By having made to yield 
Richard, who had been hitherto 
The master of the field. 

And then the soldiers, who have stood 
Some distance from the fray, 

Rush in to take their portion of 
The glory of the day. 

And men with banners in their hands, 

At eighteen pence a night, 

Some with red roses on the flags, 

And some with roses white, 

By shaking them together, 

The colours gently blend, 

And the Battle of the Roses 
Is for ever at an end. 

The Battle of Bosvvorth Field terminated the War of the Roses, or 
rather brought the roses into full blow, and cut off some of the flower of 


310 


COMTC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


the English nobility. Richmond was proclaimed king on the field, as 
Henry VII.; and as the soldiers formed themselves into a tableau the 



Coronation of Henry VIL on tlie Field of Battle. 


curtain descended on the tragedy of the War between the Houses of 
York and Lancaster. 

Richard had reigned a couple of years and a couple of months when 
he received his quietus on the field of Bosworth. If ever there was a 
king of England whose name was bad enough to hang him, this unfor 
tunate dog has a reputation which would suspend him on every lamp- 
post in Christendom. The odium attaching to his policy has been 
visited on his person, and it has been asserted that the latter was not 




























































































































CHAP. VII.] 


CHARACTER OF RICHARD III. 


311 


straight because the former was crooked. His right shoulder is said by 
Rouse, who hated him, to have been higher than his left; but this 
apparent deformity may have arisen from the party having taken a one¬ 
sided view of him. His stature was small; but in the case of one who 
never stood very high in the opinion of the public, it was physically impos¬ 
sible for the fact to be otherwise. Walpole, in his very ingenious “ Historic 
Doubts,” has tried to get rid of Richard’s high hump, but the operation 
has not been successful, in the opinion of any impartial umpire. 
Imagination, that tyrant which has such a strange method of treating 
its subjects, has had perhaps more to do than Nature in placing an 
enormous burden on Richard’s shoulders. His features were decidedly 
good-looking; but on the converse of the principle that “handsome is 
as handsome does,” the tyrant Gloucester has been regarded as one of 
those who “ ugly was that handsome didn’t.” 

It is a remarkable fact that Richard III. during his short reign 
received no subsidy from Parliament, though we must not suppose 
that he ruled the kingdom gratuitously, for, on the contrary, his income 
was ample and munificent. He got it in the shape of tonnage and 
poundage upon all sorts of goods, and when money was not to be had he 
took property to the full value of the claim he had upon it. The result 
was that his treasury became a good deal like an old curiosity shop, a 
coal shed, or a dealer’s in marine stores, for anything that came in 
Richard’s way was perfectly acceptable. The principle of poundage 
was applied to everything, even in quantities less than a pound, and he 
would, even on a few ounces of sugar, sack his share of the saccharine. 
If he required it for his own use he never scrupled to intercept the 
housewife on her way from the butcher’s, and cut off the chump from 
the end of the chop ; nor did he hesitate, when he felt disposed, to lop 
the very lollipop in the hands of the schoolboy. This principle of 
allowing poundage to the king was in the highest degree inconve¬ 
nient. It rendered the meat-safe a misnomer, inasmuch as it was never 
safe from royal rapacity. 

It has been said of Richard, that he would have been well qualified to 
reign, had he been legally entitled to the throne; or, in other words, 
that he would have been a good ruler if he had not been a bad sovereign. 
To us this seems to savour of the old anomaly—a distinction without a 
difference. He certainly carried humbug to the highest possible point, for 
he exhibited it upon the throne, which serves as a platform to make either 
vice or virtue—as the case may be—conspicuous. 

The trick by which he obtained possession of his nephew, the young 
King Edward, whose liberty was likely to prove a stumbling-block in 
Richard’s own path to the throne, is remarkable for its cunning, 
and for the intimate knowledge it displayed of the juvenile character. 
Proceeding to the residence of the baby monarch’s mamma, he began 
askin" after “ little Ned ” with apparently the most affectionate interest. 
He had previously provided himself with a lot of sweetstuff as he came 
along, for it was his deep design to intoxicate with brandy-balls the 


313 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


head of the infant sovereign. “Where is the little fellow?” inquired 
Richard, who would take no excuse for his nephew not being produced, 
but declared that being in no hurry, he could wait the convenience of 
the nursery authorities. Finding further opposition useless, Elizabeth 
reluctantly ordered the boy to be brought down, when Richard asked 
him “ Whether he would like to go with uncle Dick ?” and got 
favourable answers by surreptitiously cramming the child’s mouth with 
lollipops. Whenever the little fellow was about to say “ He would 
rather stay with his mamma,” the Protector called his attention (aside) 



“ Would Yorke like to go with his uncle Dick?” 


to a squib or brandy-ball, and York consented at last to go with his 
uncle. “ Oh ! I thought you would,” cried the wily duke, as he clutched 
his little nephew up and jogged with him to the Tower. Such was the 
artful scheme by which the tyrant originally got possession of the 
subsequent victim of avuncular cruelty. It has been urged in 
extenuation of his cruel murder of the little princes, that their deaths 
were a necessary sequel to those of Hastings and others; but it would 
have been a poor consolation to the victims had they known that they 
were only killed by way of supplement. We cannot think that any por¬ 
tion ol the catalogue of Richard s crimes should be printed in colours less 

































































































































































































CHAP. VIT.j 


CHARACTER OF RICHARD 111. 


313 


black because it formed a continuation or an appendix to liis atrocities; 
nor can we excuse Part II. of a horribly bad work because Part I. has 
rendered it unavoidable. 

It is urged by those writers who have defended him, that the crimes 
he committed were only those necessary to secure the crown; but this 
is no better plea than that of the highwayman who knocks a traveller on 
the head because the blow is necessary to the convenient picking of the 
victim’s pockets. Richard’s crimes might have been palliated in some 
trifling degree, had they been essential to the recovery of his own rights, 
but the case is different when his sanguinary career was only pursued 
that he might get hold of that which did not belong to tim. It is true 
he was ambitious ; but if a thief is ambitious of possessing ur set of six 
silver tea-spoons, we are not to excuse him because he knocks us down 
and stuns us, as a necessary preliminary to the transfer of the property 
from our own to our assailant's possession. The palliators of Richard’s 
atrocities declare that he could do justice in matters where his own 
interest was not concerned; but this fact, by proving that he knew better, 
is in fact an aggravation of the faults he was habitually guilty of. It has 
been insinuated that when he had got all he wanted, he might have 
improved, but that by killing him after he had come to the throne, his 
contemporaries gave him no chance of becoming respectable. It must 
be clear to every reasonable mind that the result, even had it been 
satisfactory, would never have been worth the cost of obtaining it, and 
that in tolerating Richard’s pranks, on the chance of his becoming 
eventually a good king, his subjects might well have exclaimed le jeu 
nen vaut pas la chandelle. In the vexata questio of the cause of the death 
of the princes, the guilt has usually been attributed to Richard, because 
he reaped the largest benefit from their decease ; but this horrible doc¬ 
trine would imply that a tenant for life is usually murdered by the re¬ 
mainder-man, and that the enjoyer of the interest of Bank Stock is 
frequently cut off by the reversioner who is entitled to the principal. 
We admit there is a strong case against Richard upon other more 
reasonable evidence : and thus from the magisterial bench of History do 
we commit him to take his trial, and be impartially judged by the whole 
of his countrymen. 


314 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV 


CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. 

NATIONAL INDUSTRY. 

Let us now turn from the turmoil of war, and apply our eye-glass to 
the pursuits of peace ; for, having been surfeited for the present with 
royal rapacity, it will be refreshing to take a glance at national 
industry. 

London was at a very early period famous for the abundance of its 
wool, and it has been ingeniously suggested that the great quantity of 
wool may account for a sort of natural shyness or sheepishness among 
our fellow-countrymen. 

The Bill of Exchange was a luxury introduced in the beginning of 
the thirteenth century, for the accommodation of our forefathers, who 
had learned the value of a good name, and perhaps occasionally expe¬ 
rienced the iilconveniences of a bad one. 

There is nothing very interesting in the history of Commerce until the 
time of Whittington, whose cat, we have already said, was a fabulous 
animal, though it has taken its place by the side of the British Lion in 
our English annals. We are inclined to believe that there is some 
analogy between these two brutes, and that both are meant to be the 
types respectively of our political and commercial prosperity. We have 
sometimes thought that the British Lion, from its plurality of lives, 
ought rather to be called the British Cat, especially from its readiness 
to come to the scratch when the altar or the throne may seem to be in 
jeopardy. Whatever may be the exact nature of the beast, it is cer¬ 
tainly a very highly-trained and somewhat harmless animal, for any 
statesman may place his head in the British Lion’s mouth, and 
remove it again without suffering the slightest injury. The creature 
will roar loudly enough and show an ample expanse of jaw, but it is 
frequently vox et prceterea nihil with the noisy brute, whose grumbling 
is often indicative of his extreme emptiness. 

Whittington was certainly three times Lord Mayor of London, and 
we find him “ doing a bill” for Henry IV. to the tune of a thousand 
pounds, and taking the subsidy on wool—out of which the sovereign 
generally fleeced the people—as collateral security. 

In the reign of Henry V. considerable advance was made in the art of 
ship-building, though from the pictures of the period it would seem that 
the craft exhibited very little of the workman’s cunning. One of the 
ships of war of the fifteenth century, described in the Harleian MS., has 
all the appearance of a raft constructed of a few planks, with a sort of 
sentry-box at one end for the accommodation of the steersman. In the 
larger vessels the entire crew will be found always crowding the deck in 
a dense mass ; for the rules against taking more than the number were 


CHAP. VIII ] 


WILLIAM OF TRUMPINGTON. 


315 


not enforced, and an ancient ship, like a modern carpet-bag, was never so 
full but something additional could be always crammed into it. 

. a S e commerce was so highly respectable that even kings car¬ 

ried it on; and the highest ecclesiastics were in business for themselves 
as tradesmen of the humblest character. Matthew Paris tells us of an 
abbot of St. Alban’s who did a good deal m the fish line, under the 
name of William of Trumpington. His chief transactions were in Yar¬ 
mouth herrings, and the worthy abbot undertook to put upon every 



“ Ya-ah ' Macker—el ! ” William of Trumpington, the Abbot of St. Alban’s. 


breakfast table as good a bloater as money could procure, at a very 
moderate figure. The benevolent dignitary had come to the conclusion 
that the cure of herrings would pay him better than the cure of souls, 
and he accordingly added the former lucrative branch to the latter em 
ployment, with a pompous declaration that the two might be considered 
analogous. This habit among the churchmen, of making all fish that 
came to their net, was by no means popular, and it was said in a lampoon 
of the day, that the next thing to be done would be the conversion of a 
prebendal stall into an oyster stall. 

Among the other disreputable sources of revenue to which the eccle 
siastics devoted themselves we must not omit to mention smuggling, 
which they carried on to an alarming extent in wool; for after going 
wool-gathering in all directions, they padded themselves with it and 
stuffed it under their gowns for the purpose of eluding the Customs’ 
regulations, to which the article was subjected. 

Edward IV. was a true tradesman at heart, and, had he been a general 
dealer instead of a king, he would have been quite in his proper station. 
Nature had fitted him for the counter, though Fortune had placed him 
on the throne; but even in his commercial transactions he was guilty of 
acts that were quite unworthy of the high character of the British 

























316 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOR IV 


tradesman. The butt of Malmsey in which he caused his brother to be 
drowned was, it is believed, actually sold as a full fruity wine with 
“ plenty of body in it,” after poor Clarence had been in soak till death 
relieved him from his drenching. Edward IY. had also the disagree¬ 
able habit of enriching himself by money, which he borrowed from the 
merchants, and never thought proper to return to them himself; but if 
he paid them at all, he, by laying on taxes, took it out of the people. 
It was also a fraudulent propensity of some of our early kings, to depre¬ 
ciate the coin of the realm, and Edward III. managed to squeeze two 
hundred and seventy pennies, instead of two hundred and forty, out of 
a pound, which enabled him to put the odd half-crown into his own 
pocket. Henry IY. carried the sweating process still further, by dilut¬ 
ing a pound into thirty shillings, a trick he excused by alleging the 
scarcity of money; though the expedient was as bad as that of the house¬ 
wife who, when the strength of the tea was gone, filled up the pot with 
water for the purpose of making more of it. Edward IY., considering 
that his predecessors had not subjected the pound to all the compound 
division of which it was capable, smashed it into four hundred pennies, 
which was certainly proving that he could make a pound go as far as 
any one. 

In speaking of the industry of the people, we may fairly allude to 
what was regarded at the time as a great drag upon it in the shape of 
a fearful increase of attorneys, who in 1455 had grown to such an 
extent in Norfolk and Suffolk, that those places were literally swarming 
with the black fraternity. In the city of Norwich the attorneys were 
so plentiful that the evil began to correct itself, for they commenced 
preying on each other, like the water-lion and water-tiger in the drop of 
stagnant fluid viewed through the solar microscope. They were in the 
habit of attending markets and fairs, where they worked people up 
into bringing and defending actions against each other, without the 
smallest legal ground for proceedings on either side. A salutary 
statute cut down the exuberance of the attorneys by limiting their 
numbers, and six were appointed as a necessary evil for Suffolk ; six as 
a standing nuisance in Norfolk ; while two were apportioned under the 
head of things that, as they “ can’t be cured must be endured,” to the 
city of Norwich. Such was the state of national industry up to the 
period at which we have arrived in our history. 


CHAP. IX. J 


MANNERS, CUSTOMS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE. 


317 


CHAPTER THE NINTH. 

OF THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 

o withstanding that in a previous book we brought 
down the fashions and furniture of our forefathers to 
the fourteenth century, in the present chapter we 
shall have the pleasure of laying before our readers 
some considerably later intelligence. We left our 
ancestors lying upon very uncomfortable beds, but the 
year 1415 introduces us to some luxuries in the way of 
curtains and counterpanes. The Duke of York set forth 
his bedding in his will, which bears the date we have 
named, and he seems to have died worth some thousands 
of pounds—of superior goose feathers. At a somewhat 
later period the sheet burst upon the page of history, 
and a blank is supplied by the sudden appearance of the 
blanket. 

It was about the same period that clocks with strings 
and weights began to have a striking influence on the 
time, and Edward IV. used to carry one about with him 
wherever he went, but we do not believe that he wore 
it in a watchpocket, from which, instead of key and 
seals, there hung a couple of weights and a pendulum. 

Costume seems to have been curtailed of very little 
of its exuberant absurdity in the reigns of Henry IV. 
and V., though reform was carried to extremes, for it 
cut off the surplus hair from the head, and took away 
at least half a yard from the foot by relieving the shoes 
of their long points, a fashion which had always been remarkable for 
exrteme pointlessness. 

In the reign of Edward IV there appears to have been a practice 
prevalent of making a shift to go without a shirt, when those who had 
such a thing to their backs were seized with a spirit of self-assertion, and 
began to slash open their sleeves for the purpose of showing their pos¬ 
session of that very useful article. The desire to prove the plenteous¬ 
ness and perhaps also the proprete of the under linen, led to a further 
ripping up of other parts of the dress, and the fops of the day began to 
outslash each other by opening the seams of their clothes in the most 
unseemly fashion. 

Richard III. and his “cousin of Buckingham” were notorious for 
their love of finery, and the term “buck,” which is used at the present 
day, is evidently an abbreviation of Buckingham. Richard, probably, 
invented the Dicky or false front, which gave him the appearance of 







318 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


having always a clean breast, though the fact is that he was reduced to 
the expedient of wearing a false front, because the stains of guilt upon 
his bosom were utterly indelible. 

The appetite of the fifteenth century seems to have been uncommonly 
good, for we find our ancestors eating four meals a day, beginning with 
breakfast at seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and a collation taken 
in bed—oh, the cormorants!—between eight and nine in the evening. 
The meal taken in bed may have consisted of a blanquette de veau, or 
perhaps now and then a bolster pudding, while the ladies may have 
indulged themselves with a cotelette en papillotes. Earl Percy and his 
countess used to absorb between them a gallon of beer and a quart of 
wine, and before being tucked up for the night would tuck in a loaf of 
household bread, with other trifles to follow. A dinner in the days to 
which we are reverting generally lasted three hours, but tumblers and 
dancers were employed to amuse the feasters, so that a kind of caper 
sauce was served out with every dish that came to table. 

Nothing in the whole annals of ancient and modern gluttony can 
exceed the dinner said to have been given by George Neville, the brother 
of the King-maker, on his induction to the Archbishopric of York, in the 
fifteenth century. It opened with a hundred and four oxen, (cm 
naturel ,) six wild bulls, (a la menagere,) three hundred and four calves, 
(en surprise^) with innumerable entrees of pigs, bucks, stags, and roes, to 
an extent that is not only almost but quite incredible. 

The pictures of the period represent a very inconvenient mode of 
laying the table, for we find a fish served up in a slop-basin, or rather 
laid across the top of that article of china-ware, which was much too 
small to admit the body of the animal. As far as we can discern the 
intention of the artist, we fancy we recognise in one of his pictures of 
a feast a duck lying on its back in a sort of sugar-basin or salt-cellar. 
This and a kind of mustard-pot, with an empty plate and half of a 
dinner-roll, may be said to constitute the entire provision made for a 
party of seven, who are standing up huddled together on one side of the 
table, in an existing representation of a dinner of the period. 

The sports of the people were very numerous in the fifteenth century; 
but if we may judge by the pictures we have seen of the games, there 
was more labour than fun in the frolics of our forefathers. The contor¬ 
tions into which they seem to have thrown themselves while playing at 
bowls are quite painful to contemplate; and the well-known game of 
quarter-staff consisted of a mutual battering of shins and skulls, with a 
pole about six feet in length and some inches in circumference. Tennis 
was introduced at this early date, and it is therefore erroneous to assign 
its invention to Archbishop Tennison,—a report which has been spread 
by some unprincipled person, whose career of crime commencing in a 
pun has ended in a falsehood. 

The professional fool was a highly respectable character in the 
middle ages; and the court jester was a most influential personage, 
who was allowed to criticise all the measures of the ministry. He was 


CHAP. IX.] MANNERS, CUSTOMS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE 319 

a sort of supplementary premier ; but, in later administrations—the 
present always excepted—the office of fool has merged among the mem¬ 
bers of the government. It is a curious fact, that, judging from the 
portraits which have been preserved, the fools seem to have been the 
most sensible-looking persons of their own time; and the proverb, that 
“ it takes a wise man to make a fool,” was, no doubt, continually 
realized. The practical jokes of the jester were sometimes exceedingly 
disagreeable, for they consisted chiefly of blows and buffets, administered 
by a short wand, called a bauble, which he was in the habit of carrying. 
It was all very well when the fool’s sallies happened to be taken in good 
part, but a witticism coming mal-a-propos, would often prove no joke to 
the joker, who would get soundly thrashed for his impertinence. An 
ancient writer * describes the functions of a fool to have consisted 
chiefly of “ making mouths, dancing about the house, leaping over the 
tables, outskipping men’s heads, tripping up his companions’ heels,” 
and indulging in other similar facetice, which, though falling under the 
head of fun for the fool himself, might have been death to the victims 
of his exuberant gaiety. His life must have been one unbroken panto¬ 
mime ; though its last scene was seldom so brilliant as those bowers of 
bliss and realms of delight in the island of felicity, which owe their 
existence to the combined ingenuity of the painter and the machinist. 

The spirit of chivalry had already begun to decline, or rather chivalry 
had lost its spirit altogether, for when it once became diluted it took 
very little time to evaporate. The few real combats that were fought 
referred chiefly to judicial proceedings, in which points of law were 
decided by the points of lances. The combatants probably thought they 
might as well bleed each other as allow themselves to be bled by the 
hands of the lawyers. The tournaments had dwindled down into the 
most contemptible exhibitions, for the spears used were entirely head¬ 
less, and an encounter generally ended in the clashing together of a 
couple of blunted swords or the flourishing in the air of a brace of huge 
choppers, so that as the antagonists kept turning about, they might be 
said to revolve round each others’ axes. 

Before concluding our chapter on the manners and customs of the 
people at the date to which our history has arrived, we may notice some 
regulations for apparel, by which it was ordered, not only that every 
man should cut his coat according to his cloth, but should select his 
cloth according to the means he had of buying it. Apparel was not the 
only thing with which the law interfered, but some Acts were passed, 
fixing the rate of meals to be allowed to servants, and thus ameliorating 
their condition. Articles of dress were subjected to the most stringent 
legislation, and tailors were of necessity guided by Parliamentary mea¬ 
sures ; carters and ploughmen were limited by law to a blanket, so that 
the lightness of the restrictions permitted a looseness of attire, which 
was highly convenient. Persons not of noble rank were prohibited from 


* Lodpe. author ot the Wits Misevie. 4to. J599. 


320 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK IV. 


wearing garments of undue brevity; and it was only those of the highes 
standing to whom the shortest dresses were permitted. 

It was in the period to which the present chapter refers, that English 
pauperism first became the subject of legislation ; and it was an ac¬ 
knowledged principle, that the land must provide the poor with food and 
shelter, for civilization had not yet required the suppression of desti¬ 
tution by starvation and imprisonment. 

We have now brought down our account of the condition of the 
people, from the highest to the lowest, from the king on his throne to 
the pauper on his parish, from the royal robber in the palace to the 
sturdy beggar in the public thoroughfare. We have seen how England 
was torn to pieces by the thorns belonging to the Roses, and how, after 
fighting about the difference between white and red, the union of both 
taught those who had been particular to a shade, the folly of observing 
so much nicety. Future chapters must develope the influence which 
this union produced, and will show the effect of that junction between 
the damask and the cabbage roses, which had only been brought about 
by dyeing them in the blood of so many Englishmen. 


END OF VOL. I, 


RR4D8URY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITE* K.a fig 


c* 








































































































































































































































































THiS 


Pontic fMstot*# of <£nglantfi 


BOOK V. 

CHAPTER THE FIRST. 

HENRY THE SEVENTH. 

hough Henry had got the crown upon 
his head, he did not feel quite sure of 
being able to keep it there, for he 
knew there was nothing so difficult 
to balance on the top of a human 
pole as a regal diadem. He felt that 
what had been won by the sword 
must be sustained by that dangerous 
weapon, though he was not insensible 
to the fact that edged tools are fre¬ 
quently hurtful to the hand that uses 
them. He became jealous of Edward 
Plantagenet, a boy of fifteen, the heir 
of the Duke of York, and grandson 
of Warwick, the king-maker. This 
unhappy lad was sent to the Tower, 
lest his superior right might prove 
mightier than the might which Henry 
had displayed on the field of Bos- 
worth. 

The Princess Elizabeth, daughter 
of the Queen Dowager, who was known by the humbler name of Mrs. E. 
Woodville, was let out of prison, to which she had been consigned by 
Richard III., who kept her closely under lock and key from the moment 
when he found it impossible to unite her to him in wedlock. 

Henry came up to London five days after the battle of Bosworth, and 
was met at Hornsey by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, all dressed in 
violet, which caused the new king to exclaim, “ Ha! gentlemen, you 

VOL. ir. b 























































2 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


wish me to take a hint. Your privileges shall be, like yourselves, 
in-violate!” He then proceeded in a close chariot to St. Paul’s, where 
he deposited his three standards; and it has been suggested, that the 
celebrated Standard at Cornhill was one of those alluded to. The 
festivities in London were so numerous at the accession, that the city 
became crowded to suffocation, and the “ sweating sickness,” which 
will be remembered as Stanley’s old complaint, broke out among the 
inhabitants. When it had abated Henry began to think about his 
coronation, and he took an early dinner at Lambeth with the Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury—Thomas Bourchier—to talk the matter over. 
The king and the prelate soon came to terms over their chop for the 



Henry VII. taking a Chop with the Archbishop of Canterbury. 


performance of the ceremony, which took place on the 30th of October, 
1485, in the usual style of elegance. The good archbishop was an old 
and experienced hand: for he had crowned Richard III. only two years 
before, and indeed the system of the prelate was, to ask no questions 
that he might hear no falsehoods ; but he was always ready to perform 






































































































































































































CHAP. I.] 


MARRIAGE WITH ELIZABETH WOODVILLE. 


3 


a coronation for any one who could find his own crown, and pay the 
fees that were usual. 

A Parliament was now summoned, hut when the Commons came 
together, it turned out that several of them had been attainted and 
outlawed in previous reigns without the attainders having been since 
reversed, and Henry himself was in the same doubtful predicament. 
The opinion of the judges was required in this disagreeable dilemma, 
but the intention in consulting them was only to get these accommodating 
interpreters of the law to twist it into a shape that would meet existing 
contingencies. With the usual pliability of the judges of those days, 
the parties whose opinion was asked gave it in favour of the strongest 
side, and Henry’s having got the crown was declared to have cured all 
deficiencies of title. The Commons were obliged to have bills passed 
to reverse their attainders, but the king, like one of those patent fire¬ 
places which are advertised to consume their own smoke, was alleged to 
have cured the defects of his own title by the bare fact of his having 
got possession of the royal dignity. 

Having settled all matters concerning his claim to the throne, he 

began to think about his intended wife, Elizabeth. “ I beg youi 

pardon for keeping you waiting,” said he to Miss Woodville ; “bul 

really I have been detained by other engagements.” The young lady, 

who had sometimes feared that her case was one of breach of promise, 

was glad to disguise her real annoyance, and saying that “ It did not at 

all signify,” she prepared for the much retarded nuptials. They were 

solemnised on the 18th of January, 1486, and they were no sooner over 

than Henry exclaimed, “ Now, Madam, recollect I have married you, 

but have not married your family.” This uncourteous speech had 

reference to old Mrs. Woodville, who had already written to know what 

* 

her new son-in-law would do for her. “ I will not have her in the 
house,” roared Henry, with savage earnestness ; but he settled a small 
annuity upon her, which he enabled himself to pay by pocketing the 
whole of her dower. 

The Queen became anxious for her coronation, as any woman might 
reasonably be; but Henry put her off day after day, by exclaiming, 
“Don’t be in a hurry; there’s time enough for that nonsense.” In 
this heartless manner he succeeded in adjourning the pageant for an 
indefinite period. 

Henry’s next project was to get up his popularity by a tour in the 
provinces. Happening to put up at Lincoln, he heard that Lord Lovel, 
with Humphrey and Thomas Stafford “ had gone with dangerous inten¬ 
tions no man knew whither.” They had much better have remained 
where they were; for Lord Lovel, after collecting a large body of 
insurgents, found himself quite unable to pay their wages, and at once 
disbanded them. He flew into Flanders ; but the two Staffords were 
taken in the very act of concocting an insurrection, for which Hum 
phrey, the elder, was hanged, while Thomas, on account of his youth, 
was pardoned 

b 2 


4 COMIC HISTORY OJff ENGLAND. [BOOK V 

Henry arrived on the 2Gth of April, I486, at York, where 
Richard III., though killed on Bosworth Field, was still living in some 
of the people's memories. The marking-ink, in which the tyrant’s 
name was written on their hearts, being by no means indelible, Henry 
determined to sponge it out as quickly as possible. He tried soft soap 
upon some and golden ointment upon others; both of which specifics 
had so much effect that in less than a month the city rang with cries of 
“ Long live King Henry!” 

On the 20tli of September, the Court newsman of the day announced 
the interesting fact that the happiness of the king’s domestic circle had 
been increased by the birth of a son; or, rather, the royal circle had 
been turned into a triangle by the arrival of an infant heir, who was 
named Arthur. 

We must now request the reader to throw the luggage of his 
imagination on board the boat, and accompany us to Ireland, where, on 
landing, we will introduce him, ideally, to a priest and a boy who have 
just arrived in Dublin. The priest describes his young charge as 
Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, which will astonish us not a 
little, inasmuch as our friend, the reader, will remember that w r e left 
the little fellow not long ago a close prisoner in the Tower How he 
got out is the question which we first ask ourselves, which we answer 
by intimating, that he did not get out at all, but he was only “ a boy 
dressed up” to represent the young Earl, and he played his part so 
well that many believed his story to be genuine. He had studied the 
character he represented, and had got by heart all the adventures of 
the young prince, together with a fund of anecdote that appeared quite 
inexhaustible. The juvenile impostor scarcely spoke a sentence that 
did not begin with “ When I was a prisoner in the Tower/’ which 
made every one believe that he had really been an inmate of that 
gloomy jail; and the trick succeeded to a miracle. The urchin was 
proclaimed as Edward VI., King of England and France and Lord 
of Ireland ; for such was the credulity of the Hibernians that they 
believed every word of the tale that had been told to them. Henry, 
desirous of exposing the fraud, had the real Plantagenet taken out of 
the Tower, for exhibition in the London streets ; but the Irish declared 
that the real thing was a mere imposition, and the mock duke the 
genuine article. They, in fact, illustrated that instructive fable, in 
which an actor, having been applauded for his imitation of a pig, w r as 
succeeded by a rival who w r ent the whole hog and concealed in the folds 
of his dress a real brute, whose squeak was pronounced very far less 
natural than that of the original representative of the porcine character 

Henry becoming a little alarmed at these proceedings, began rushing 
into the extremes of levity and severity; now pardoning a host of 
political offenders, and the next day, packing off the Queen Dowager— 
marked “Carriage paid, with care,”—to the monks at Bermondsey. 
Lambert Simnel, for so the impostor was called, held out as long as he 
could, and even got up, by subscription, one coronation during the 


CHAP. I.] 


LAMBERT 3IMNEL 


5 


season; but upon Henry’s taking measures to chastise him he soon 
shrunk into insignificance. After a battle at Stoke, the pretender and 
his friend, the priest, were taken into custody, when the latter was 
handed over to the church for trial, and the former received a con¬ 
temptuous pardon, including the place of scullion, to wash up the dishes 
and run for the beer in the royal 
household. He was at once 
placed in the kitchen, where 
his perquisites, probably in the 
way of kitchen stuff, enabled 
him to save a little money, and, 
in order to better himself, he 
subsequently sought and ob 
tained the office of superinten¬ 
dent of the poultry yard, under 
the imposing title of the king’s 
falconer. The priest, his tutor, 
seems to have dropped down 
one of those gratings of the 
past which lead to the common 
sewer of obscurity, in which it 
is quite impossible to follow 
him. We hear of him last look¬ 
ing through the bars of a prison, 
where he was left till called for, 
and, as nobody ever called, he 
never seems to have emerged 
from his captivity. 

The friends of the house of York now became clamorous at the treat¬ 
ment of the Queen Elizabeth, who had been kept in obscurity, and had 
urged “ that little matter of the coronation” over and over again upon 
the attention of her selfish husband. “ How you bother!” he would 
sometimes exclaim to his unhappy consort, whom he would endeavour to 
quiet by the philosophical inquiry of “ What are the odds, so long as 
you ’re happy ?”—a question which, as Elizabeth was not happy, she 
found some difficulty in answering. At length, one morning at break 
fast, he said sulkily, “Well, I suppose I shall never have any peace 
till that affair comes off;’’ and the necessary orders for the coronation 
of the Queen were immediately given. Henry, himself, behaved in a 
very ungentlemanly manner, during the entire ceremony, for he viewed 
it from behind a screen,* which was afterwards brought into the hall, 
to enable him to sit at his ease out of sight, and take occasional peeps 
at the dinner. He had refused to honour the proceedings with his 
presence, having declared the ceremony to be “slow,” and alleged the 

* The old chroniclers affirm that he looked on “ from behind a lattice.” A modern 
authority has it, that the king looked on at the dinner from behind a lettuce—spelt lattice 
—and had a magnificent salad before him during the proceedings. 



A Young Pretender. 































































































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


0 


[book V. 


impossibility of his sitting it out after having once suffered the 
infliction. 

It was at about this period of the reign of Henry VII. that the Court 
of Star Chamber was established ; and though it, ultimately,* “ became 
odious by the tyrannical exercise of its powers,” its intentions were 
originally as honourable as the most scrupulous of its suitors could have 
desired. It was founded in consequence of the inefficiency of the 
ordinary tribunals to do complete justice in criminal matters and other 
offences of an extraordinary and dangerous character,! and to supply a 
sort of criminal equity—if we may be allowed the term—which should 
reach the offences of great men, whom the inferior judges and juries of 
the ordinary tribunals might have been afraid to visit with their merited 
punishment. 

It has been suggested with some plausibility that the court of Star 
Chamber derived its name from the decorations of the room in which it 
was held, though it is perhaps a more ingenious supposition of a modern 
authority, that the word “ Star” was applied to the court in question 
because within its walls justice w T as administered in a twinkling. It 
might, with as much reason, be suggested that the name had reference 
to the constellation of legal talent of which the tribunal was composed: 
for those stars of the first magnitude—the Lord Chancellor, the Lord 
Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, and the President of the Council—were 
all of them judges of the Court. 

We must not, however, detain the reader any longer in a dull court 
of law, for w r e find ourselves served, in imagination, with a writ of 
Habeas Corpus, commanding us to bring him up for the purpose of 
inquiring by what right we hold him in the disagreeable duress of dry 
legal detail. 

In returning to Henry, we find him offering to act as mediator 
between Charles of France and the Duke of Bretagne, when, like every 
meddler in the disputes of others, he is unable to emerge from the 
position in which he has placed himself, without that nasal tweak which 
is the due reward of impertinence. The taxes he was obliged to impose 
for the purpose of interference, undertaken, as he alleged, to curb the 
ambition of the French court were very exorbitant, and particularly so 
on account of Henry’s avarice, which induced him to put about ten per 
cent, of every levy into his own pocket. The people were, of course, 
dissatisfied, and the harshness used in collecting the subsidy irritated 
them so much in the north, that they took their change out of the 
unfortunate Duke of Northumberland, whom they killed, because he 
had the ill luck to be employed in the invidious office of tax- 
gatherer. 

In 1490 parliament liberally granted some more money to carry on 

* Vide the valuable work on the Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, 
comprising its Rise, Progress, and Final Establishment. By George Spence, Esq., Q.C. 
Vol. i., page 350. 

■f Ditto, page 3$1. 


CHAP. I.] PERKIN WARBECK PRETENDS TO THE CROWN. 7 

the war with France, but Henry pocketed the cash, and sent some 
priests to try and compromise the matter with the enemy. It was not 
until four years afterwards, in the course of 1494, that he really went 
to w r ork against the French, but he contrived to make it pay him 
exceedingly well; for he not only grabbed the subsidies voted for the 
purpose, but he converted them into so much clear profit, by getting his 
knights and nobles to bear their own expenses out of their own pockets. 
He kindly gave them permission to sell their estates without the 
ordinary fines ; and many a gallant fellow sold himself completely up, 
in the hope of indemnifying himself by what he should be able to take 
from the French in battle. 

Henry had, however, completely humbugged his gallant knights and 
nobles; for he never intended them to have the chance of gaining 
anything in France by conquest, and had, in fact, settled the whole 
matter at a very early period. He had made up his mind not to spend 
more than he could help, and had been putting away the subsidies in a 
couple of huge portmanteaus, which served him for coffers. Under the 
pretence of doing something, he passed over with his army to France, 
and “ sat down” before Boulogne, but his sitting down proved that he 
had no intention of making any stand, and a truce was very soon agreed 
upon. Two treaties were drawn up, one of which was to be made public, 
for the purpose of misleading the people, and the other was a private 
transaction between the two sovereigns. The first only stipulated for 
peace, but the second secured the sum of £149,000 to be paid by 
instalments to Henry, who must have been under the necessity of 
ordering another coffer to receive the additional wealth that was 
thus poured in upon him. 

New troubles were, however, commencing to disturb the mind of the 
king, who received one morning at breakfast, a despatch announcing the 
arrival, at the Cove of Cork, of another pretender to the Crown of Eng¬ 
land “There seems to be no end to these vagabonds,”he mentally 
exclaimed, as he read the document announcing that a handsome young 
man had been giving himself out as Bichard Duke of York, second son 
of Edward IV., and legitimate heir to the monarchy. “ Pooh, pooh,” 
ejaculated Henry, “ the fellow was disposed of in the Tower long ago ; ” 
but on perusing further he found that the young man had met this 
objection by alleging that he had escaped, and had been for seven years a 
wanderer. It was exceedingly improbable that the royal youth had been 
so long upon the tramp; but his story was not very rigidly criticised by 
Henry’s enemies. The wanderer introduced himself to the Duchess of 
Burgundy, who, after some inquiry, pronounced him to be genuine, and 
embraced him as the undoubted son of her dear brother Edward. She 
gave him the poetical name of the White Bose of England ; but Henry 
knowing that “ the rose by any other name” would not “smell as sweet” 
in the nostrils of the English, gave out that the “ White Bose ” was a 
Jew boy of the name of Peterkin or Perkin Warbeck. It was further 
alleged that the lad had been recently a footman in the family of Lady 


8 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK Y. 


Brompton, with whom he had been travelling. Peterkin was materially 
damaged in public opinion by getting the character of a mere “ flunky, 
and he was afraid to do more than hover about the coast without 
venturing to effect a landing. Though Henry had held the Pretender 
up to ridicule, Perkin Warbeck’s opposition was in reality no joke, and 
the king bribed a few of the party to betray their colleagues. Several 
were at once informed against, among whom were the two Ratcliffes 
who denied their guilt in the usual Ratcliffe highway: but their 
repudiation had no effect, for one of them w T as at once beheaded. 
Sir William Stanley, a very old friend of the Richmond family, whose 
brother, Lord Stanley, had put the battered crown on Henry’s brow 
in the field of Boswortli, became an object of suspicion; and thinking 
he should get off by a confession, he acknowledged everything he had 
been guilty of, with a supplement containing a catalogue of offences he 
had never committed. Thus by denying too much for confession and 
owning enough for condemnation, he fell between two stools—one of 
which was the stool of repentance—and lost his head at the moment he 
fancied he was upon a safe footing. 

The party of Perkin Warbeck being discouraged by these events, 
and the people of Flanders having grown tired of the Pretender’s long 
visit, he felt that “ now or never,” was the time for his descent on 
England. The White Rose having torn himself away by the force of 
sheer pluck, attempted to transplant himself to the coast of Deal, but 
he found a Kentish knight, ready to repel the Rose, and by a cry of 
f ‘ Go it, my tulips,” encouraging his followers to resist all oppression. 
The White Rose and his companions mournfully took their leaves, and 
as many as could escape returned with press of sail to Flanders. 
Henry sent a vote of thanks to the men of Kent with a promise of 
gold, but the remittance never came to hand from that day to the present. 

Mr. P. Warbeck was now becoming such a nuisance in Flanders, 
that he was told he must really suit himself with another situation 
immediately. He tried Ireland, but the dry announcement of “ no 
such person known,” was almost the only answer to his overtures. As 
a last resource, and a proof of the desperate nature of his fortune he 
actually threw himself upon the generosity of the Scotch, which was 
almost as hopeless as running his head against a stone wall; but as it 
was just possible that Perkin Warbeck, might be turned to profitable 
account against England, the Scotch opened their hearts—where there 
is never any admission except on business — to the adventurous 
wanderer James III., king of Scotland, chiefly out of spite to Henry, 
not only received Perkin as the genuine duke of York, but married him 
to Lady Catherine Gordon, the lovely and accomplished daughter of the 
Earl of Huntley, a relative of the royal house of Stuart. An agreement 
was drawn up between James of Scotland of the one part, and Perkin 
Warbeck of the other, by virtue of which Perkin was to be pitchforked 
on to the English throne, and was to make over the town of Berwick- 
on-Tweed—when he got it—as an acknowledgment to King James for 


CHAI*. T. I 


THE CORNISH INSURRECTION. 


9 


liis valuable services. After some little delay, the Scotch crossed the 
border to enforce Perkin’s demand ; but •when that individual arrived 
in England, he found himself so thoroughly snubbed that he sneaked 
back again. 

Notwithstanding the utter failure of this enterprise, which had cost 
Henry not a penny to resist, he sent in a bill as long as his arm for the 
equipment of his army. The people who had not been called upon to 
strike a single blow, and always liked to have, what they called, “ their 
whack for their money,” were enraged at being asked to pay for a battle 
that had never happened. The men of Cornwall were particularly 
angry at having to give any of their tin, and came up to Blackheath, 
under Lord Audley, whose inexperience was so great that he might have 
furnished the original for the sign of the “ Green Man,” which so long 
remained the distinguishing feature of the neighbourhood. The battle of 
Blackheath was fought on the 22nd of June, 1497, with a good deal of 
superfluous strength on one side, and consummate bad management on 
the other. On the side of the insurgents, one Flammock or Flummock, 
an attorney, was a principal leader, but he would gladly have taken out 
a summons to stay proceedings, had such practice been allowable. It is 
probable that this “gentleman one, &c.” had been persuaded by some 
noble client who had an interest in the fight to appear as his attorney in 
this memorable action. 

Henry having gained every advantage in his recent transactions was 
desirous of completing his arrangements, by purchasing Warbeck, if any 
one could be found base enough to sell that unfortunate individual 
James of Scotland was too honourable for such a shameful bargain, though 
he was greatly embarrassed in assisting Warbeck, for whom he had 
melted down his plate—an act worthy of the most fiddle-headed spoon 
—besides raising money on a gold chain he used to wear, and to which 
he was so attached, that he compared it to 

“ Linked sweetness long drawn out,” 

as he drew it forth from his pocket to put it into the hands of the 
pawnbroker. 

It was now intimated to Perkin Warbeck that he “ had better go,” 
for his presence had become exceedingly costly and embarrassing 
“ I’ve nothing more for you, my good man,” were the considerate words 
of James as he despatched his guest to seek his fortune elsewhere, 
attended by a few trusty retainers, who stuck to him “ through thick 
and thin,” an attachment which, as he could hardly pay his own way, 
must have been very embarrassing. His wife’s fidelity to him in his ill- 
fortune was a beautiful as well as a gratifying fact, for she had, really, 
seen much better days, and the sacrifices she made in sharing the fate 
of a Pretender “ out of luck ” was quite undeniable. 

Perkin Warbeck made first for Cork in the hope of raising the Irish, 
but as he could not raise the Spanish, the former would have nothing to 
do with him. He next tried Cornwall, and marching inland h& soon 


10 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


found himself at the head of a party of discontented ragamuffins, who 
happened to be ready for a row, without any ulterior views of a very 



Perkin Warbeck and his Army. 


definite character. He called himself Richard IV., and penetrated 
into England as far as Taunton Dean, where Henry’s forces had already 
collected. Warbeck was admirable in all his preliminary arrangements, 
and it was “ quite a picture ” to see him reviewing his troops; but, 
picture as he was, the idea of fighting put him into such a fright, that 
he always lost his colour. He was first-rate on parade, but quite unequal 
to the business of a battle, and, indeed, to use an illustration founded 
on a fact of our own times-, he would have been invaluable in the Astley’s 
version of Waterloo, though utterly contemptible in the original per¬ 
formance of that tremendous action. 

No sooner had Perkin Warbeck ascertained the propinquity of the 
enemy than he recommended that his forces should all go to bed in 
good time to be fresh for action early in the morning. Having first 
ascertained that all were asleep, he stole off to the stable, saddled his 
horse, and having mounted the poor brute, stuck spurs into its side until 
he reached the sanctuary of Beaulieu in the New Forest. When this 


































































































CHAP. I.] KIND TREATMENT OF LADY CATHERINE GORDON. 11 

disgraceful desertion of their leader was discovered the rebels set up a 
piteous howl and threw themselves on the mercy of Henry, who ordered 
some to hang, and sent others to starve, by dismissing them without 
food or clothing. Lady Catherine Gordon, alias Mrs. P. Warbeck, who 
had been sojourning for safety at St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, was 
brought before the King, who, touched by her beauty and her tears, 
experienced in his heart that truly English sentiment which declares, 
that “ the man who would basely injure a lovely woman, in distress, is 



Henry VII. and Perkin Warbeck’s Wife. 


unworthy of the name of a—a—British officer.” He therefore sent 
her on a visit to the Queen, who paid every attention to the fallen 

heroine. 

The next thing to be done was to rout Perkin Warbeck out of the 
hole into which cowardice had driven him. Henry was unwilling to 
disturb the sanctuary, but he sent his agents to parley with Perkin, who, 
finding himself regularly hemmed in, thought it better to come out on 












































































































































































1 2 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK V. 

the best terms he could, and he accordingly emerged on the promise of 
a pardon. Henry was anxious to get a peep at the individual who had 
caused so much trouble, but thought it infra dig. to admit the rebel into 
the royal presence. The king, therefore, reverted to his old practice of 
getting behind a screen, an article he must have carried about with him 
wherever he went, that he might, unseen, indulge his curiosity. This 
paltry practice should have obtained for him the name of Peeping Harry, 
for we find him, at more than one period of his reign, skulking behind 
a screen, in the most ignoble manner. Perkin was made to ride up to 
London, behind Henry, at a little distance, and on getting to town he 
was sent on horseback through Cheapside and Cornhill, as a show for 
the citizens. There were the usual demonstrations of popular criticism 
on this occasion, and there is no doubt that amid the gibes and scoffs 
addressed to the captive the significant interrogatory of “ Who ran away 
from Taunton Dean ? ” was not forgotten. 

After taking a turn to the Tower and back for the accommodation of 
the inhabitants at the East End, who desired to be gratified with a sight 
of the Pretender, Perkin was lodged in the palace at Westminster, 
where a good deal of liberty seems to have been allowed him. He 
however chose to run away, and being caught again, he was made to 
stand in the stocks a whole day before the door of Westminster Hall, 
where he was made to read a written confession, which was interrupted 
by an occasional egg in his eye, or cabbage leaf over his mouth, for such 
are the voluntary contributions which a British public has always been 
ready to offer to helpless impotence. 

The next day the same ceremony with the same accessories was 
repeated at Cheapside, in order to give the East End an opportunity of 
enjoying the sport, which the West End had already revelled in. Perkin 
Warbeck was then committed to the Tower, where he and the unfor¬ 
tunate Earl of Warwick became what may be termed fast friends, for 
they were hound tightly together in the same prison. Warbeck, who 
was in every sense of the word an accomplished swindler, succeeded in 
winning the good opinion, not only of his fellow captive, but of the 
keepers of the jail, three of whom, it is said, had actually undertaken to 
murder Sir John Digby, the governor, for the sake of getting hold of 
the keys, and releasing the two captives. It was now evident that 
Warbeck would never be quiet, and Henry, feeling him to be a trouble¬ 
some fellow, determined to get rid of him. On the 16th of November, 
1499, Warbeck was arraigned at Westminster Hall, and being found 
guilty as a matter of course, was executed on the ‘23rd of the same 
month at Tyburn, where, cowardly to the last, he asked the forgiveness 
of the king, even on the scaffold. 

Walpole, in his “ Historic Doubts ”—a work that throws every thing 
into uncertainty and settles nothing—gives it as his opinion that Perkin 
Warbeck was really the Duke of York; but had Walpole been able to 
tell “ a sheep’s head from a carrot,” he would never have been guilty of 
such a piece of confounding and confounded blundering. We who give 


CHAP. I.] 


PERKIN WARBECK. 


13 


no encouragement whatever to Historic Doubts are tolerably sure that 
Perkin Warbeck was merely a fashionable swindler, for he had none of 



Perkin Warbeck Reading his Confession. 


that personal courage or true dignity -which would have redeemed his 
imposture from the character of mere quackery. He contrived to ruin 
poor Warwick, or at all events to hasten his destruction by implicating 
him in a conspiracy, which of his own accord he never would have 
dreamed of. 

When put upon his trial, the hapless earl—who, though only twenty- 
nine years of age, was from long seclusion in a state of second childhood, 
if indeed he had ever got out of his first—confessed with piteous sim 
plicity all that had been alleged against him. He was beheaded on 











































































































































































































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


I 4 

Tower Hill the 94th* of November, 1499 ; and it was said that his death 
was the most merciful that could be conceived, for in losing his head he 
was deprived of that which he never knew how to use, and of the pos¬ 
session of which he did not at any time seem sensible. Warbeck’s 
widow continued to go by the name of the White Rose, when Sir 
Mathew Cradoc, thinking it a pity that she should be “ left blooming 
alone,” offered to graft her on his family tree, and the White Rose 
consented to this arrangement. 

Henry had long been anxious to marry his daughter Margaret to 
James of Scotland, and he sent a cunning bishop, most appropriately 
named Fox, to act the part of a match-maker. The sly old dog brought 
the matter so cleverly about that the marriage was agreed upon, and this 
union led to the peaceful union of the two countries about a century 
afterwards. The young lady got but a small portion from her stingy 
father, and her husband made a settlement upon her of ;£2000 a year, 
but. he got her to accept a paltry compromise. The meanness of the 
arrangements may be judged of by the ridiculous fact that King James 
and his young bride rode into Edinburgh on the same palfrey. 

Henry’s eldest son, Arthur Prince of Wales, had been already married 
to Catherine, fourth daughter of Ferdinand of Spain, who promised 
200,000 crowns, half of which he paid down, as a wedding portion. 
The young husband died soon after, and Ferdinand naturally asked for 
his money and his child back again. The English king had pocketed 
the greater part of the cash, which he was not only quite unwilling to 
refund, but he had serious thoughts of proceeding for the balance of his 
daughter-in-law’s dowry. He therefore consented to affiance her to his 
second son, Henry, in compliance with the only condition upon which 
Ferdinand agreed to waive his claim to the cash already in hand, and 
he even promised to pay the rest of the portion at his “ earliest 
convenience.” 

Henry himself, or as we may call him for the sake of distinction, the 
“ old gentleman,” had lately lost his wife, and he went at once into the 
matrimonial market to see whether there was anything upon which it 
might be safe to speculate. He however wanted to conduct his opera¬ 
tions with such extraordinary profit to himself that nothing seemed to 
tempt his avarice. His ruling passion was for “ cash down,” and to 
obtain this he fleeced his subjects most unmercifully, though he employed 
the disreputable firm of Empsom and Dudley to collect the amount of the 
various extortions he was continually practising. These two men were 
little better than swindlers, though as lawyers they adhered to the rules 
of law, and indeed they kept a rabble always in the house to sit as 
jurymen. They had trials in their own office, and would often ring the 
bell to order up a jury from down stairs, just as any one in the present 

* Hume says the 21st. Another authority says the 28th. It is not with a mere 
wish to “ split the difference ” that we adopt the medium date of the 24th, but we have 
good reasons for stating that to be the exact day, and Mr. Charles Macfarlane, in his 
admirable “Cabinet History of England” has likewise named the 24th of November as 
the precise time of Warwick’s execution. 


CHAP. I.J 


DEATH OF HENRY Vll. 


15 


day would order up his dinner. Dudley got the name of the Leech, 
from his power of drawing, and indeed he would have got the blood out 
of a blood-stone if the opportunity had been afforded him.* 

Henry had now but one formidable enemy left, in the person of young 
Edmimd de la Pole, the nephew of Edward IV., and son and heir to the 
Duke of Suffolk. This turbulent individual renewed the cry in favour 
of the “ White Rose,” which was said by a wag of the day to be raised 
on a pole, after the fashion of the frozen-out gardeners. 

Suffolk soon had the mortification of finding that he had not the 
suffrages of the people, for the rush to the Pole was anything but 
encouraging. “ Ye Pole theyreforre ” says Comines, “ dydde cutte hys 
stycke ” and became a penniless fugitive in Flanders. He was ulti¬ 
mately surrendered by Philip, the archduke who had received Suffolk 
as a visitor, but gave him up with a lot of sundries he was transferring 
to Henry, who promised to spare the prisoner’s life, and did so, though 
he left word in his will that his successor had better kill the earl as 
he would otherwise prove troublesome. 

In the course of the year 1509, Henry’s health became very in¬ 
different, and he had repeated attacks of the gout, every one of which 
put him in ill-humour with himself in particular, and the world in 
general. Every fresh twinge was paid with interest upon one or more 
of his unfortunate subjects; and when he got very bad he would be 
most indiscriminate in his cruelty He fixed upon a poor old alderman 
named Harris, who died of sheer vexation at his ill-treatment before 
his indictment came on: and at this remote period we hope we shall 
not be accused of injuring the feelings of any of the posterity of poor 
Harris by saying, that he was literally harassed to death through the 
unkindness of his sovereign During his illness Henry would do justice 
occasionally between man and man, but a favourable turn in his malady, 
a quiet night, or a refreshing nap, would bury all his good resolutions 
in oblivion. At length on the night of the 21st of April, 1509, he died 
at Richmond, leaving behind him a will in which he bequeathed to his 
son and heir, the delightful task of repairing all his father’s errors. 

However easy it may be for an executor to pay the pecuniary debts 
of a testator with plenty of assets in hand, the moral responsibilities 
which have been left unsatisfied, are not so soon provided for It is 
true that a good son frequently makes atonement to society for the 
mischief done by a bad parent; but this, though it strikes a sort of 
balance with the world, does not prevent the father from being still 
held accountable for his deficiencies. 

Henry died in the fifty-third year of his age, and had he lived a day 
longer, he would have reigned twenty-three years and eight months, or 
as Cocker has it, in the simplicity of his heart, “ had he been alive in 

* Empson has been described by Hume as a man of “ mean birth and brutal temper,'* 
who of course did all the bullying of this disreputable firm, while Dudley, who wa3 
« better born, better educated, and better bred,” acted in the capacity of what may be 
termed the decoy duck of the concern ; or, in other words, the latter snared the game which 
the former savagely butchered. 


1G 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


the year 1700, lie would have reigned upwards of two centuries.'’ Our 
business, however, is not with what he might have done, but what lie 
actually did, and we therefore record the fact, that he died April 21st, 
1509, and was buried in the magnificent chapel of Westminster Abbey 
which he built, and which is called after him to this very day and hour 
that we now write upon.* 

It is often the most painful part of our labours to give characters of 
some of the sovereigns who pass under our review in the course of 
this history. To those who have only known Henry VII. as the 
chivalrous and high-minded prince that fought so gallantly with 
Richard III. on the field of Bosworth, it will be distressing to hear 
that the Richmond of their dramatic recollections is nothing like a true 
portrait of the actual character. At all events, if he had virtues in his 
youth they were not made to wear, for they became sufficiently thread¬ 
bare to be seen through before he had been a single month an occupant 
of the throne of England. Even his ambition seems to have been little 
more than a medium he had adopted for gratifying his avarice, and it is 
now pretty clear that he rather wanted the crown for what it was w r orth 
in a pecuniary point of view, than for the honourable gratification which 
power when rightly used is capable of conferring on its possessor. Hume 
tells us that “ Henry loved peace without fearing war,” which is true 
enough : for war afforded him a pretext for raising money, while peace, 
which he generally managed to arrange, gave him an opportunity of 
pocketing the cash he had collected. War, therefore, was never formida 
ble to him, for he usually manoeuvred to keep out of it; but he made the 
rumour of it serve as an excuse for taxing his people. He was decidedly 
clever as a practical man, though exceedingly unprincipled, but several 
salutary laws were passed in his reign: one of the best of which was an act 
allowing the poor to sue in forma pauperis. Considering how often the law 
reduces its suitors to poverty, it is only fair that those who are brought 
to such a condition should still be allowed to go on, for it is like ruining 
a man and then turning him out of doors to say that the courts shall be 
closed against such as are penniless. 

Another important and useful measure of Henry’s reign was that by 
which the nobility and gentry could alienate their estates, or cut off the 
tail, which limited everything to the head of a family. This apparently 
liberal act was passed for the benefit of the king himself, who wished his 
nobles to be able to sell everything they had got for the sake of paying the 
expenses of the wars, which otherwise must have been prosecuted partly 
out of Henry’s own pocket. He owed more to fortune than to his own 
merit, and even the conspiracies that were got up against him from time 
to time helped to sustain him in his high position, as the shuttlecock is 
kept in a state of elevation by constant blows from the battledore 


* A quarter to one, a.m., April 13th, 1847. 


CHAP. II.j 


HENRY THE EIGHTH 


17 


CHAPTER THE SECOND. 

HENRY THE EIGHTH. 


ENRY VIII., only 
surviving son and 
successor of Henry 
VII. took to his 
father’s crown and 
sceptre on the 22nd 
of April, 1509, amid 
general rejoicing, 
for he was an ex¬ 
ceedingly gentle- 
1 manly youth of 
eighteen, when he 
came to the throne, 
of which his parent 
had recently been 
but a bearish occu¬ 
pant. If young 
Harry had never 
lived to play old 
Harry, his popu¬ 
larity might have survived him, for the people had become disgusted 
with the conduct of his father, and there never was a finer chance for 
a young man than that which offered itself to the new sovereign. 

Nothing could exceed the grossness of the adulation which was 
poured out upon him at his accession, and the perfection of the art of 
puffing in England, may, perhaps, be ascribed to this period of our 
history. His countenance was likened to that of Apollo—a falsehood 
for which, in his features, no apolo—gy can be found: his chest was 
declared to be that of Mars, though it was evidently his Pa’s, for in 
early youth his resemblance to his father was remarkable. Clemency was 
declared to be seated on his ample forehead, Equity was pronounced to 
be balancing itself on the bridge of his nose, Intelligence was recognised 
lurking in ambush among his bushy hair; and even Erasmus attributes 
to him the acuteness of the needle, with other intellectual qualities of 
an exalted character.* 

It is sad to reflect that the philosopher, when he takes the paint¬ 
brush in hand to dash off the portrait of a king, is apt to become a mere 

* We are indebted to Mr. Tytler, who is generally correct to a tittle, for these interesting 
particulars.—See his Life of Henry VIII., p. 16 of the 2nd Edition. 

VOL. II. O 




























































IB 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


parasite, and will not abstain from staining his own character by daubing 
with false colours the canvas of history. Thus, even Erasmus used hues 
his friends would be glad to erase, and has covered over the black spots 
in Henry’s character, with that pink of perfection which makes couleur 
de rose of everything. It is not to he wondered at, that in setting out 
upon the voyage of government Henry received “ one tum-a-head ”—if 
we may be allowed a nautical expression—while the engines of flattery 
were at work on all sides of him. It is to be regretted, for the sake of 
himself as well as for the good of his subjects, that truth was not at 
hand to give him that friendly “ shove astern ” which has saved many 
from precipitating themselves on the rocks that always lie in the course 
of greatness and power. 

As if determined to begin as he intended to go on, Henry looked out 
at once for a wife, and, considering how often he was destined to undergo 
the marriage ceremony in the course of his reign, it was as well that he 
should lose no time in commencing the career that lay before him. In 
his first matrimonial adventure he appears to have let others choose for 
him, instead of making a selection for himself, and Catherine of Aragon, 
the widow of his «lder brother, Arthur, was pointed out to him as an 
eligible parti for nuptial purposes. 

This marriage was strongly recommended by the political faculty, as 
a saving of expense, for the lady would have been entitled to a large 
pension as widow of Prince Arthur; and her friends in Spain, had she 
been returned upon their hands, would have wanted to know something 
about the 150,000 crowns she had received as a marriage portion. Of 
course the whole of it was gone, and it was thought that Henry would 
be killing a whole covey of birds with one stone, if he would consent to 
take her as his wife, inasmuch as he would thus extinguish her claims 
to a pension, and prevent any awkward questions being asked in Spain 
as to the portion she had brought with her to England. Henry feeling 
a sort of intuitive consciousness that he should have plenty of opportu¬ 
nities to select a wife for himself, agreed to take, as a beginning, the 
one that had been chosen for him by others, and accordingly, on the 3rd 
of June, 1509, the lady, who was eight years older than himself, became 
his wife, at Greenwich. The royal couple were not destined to roll down 
the hill together in after life, whatever they may have done on the day 
of their union, which was doubtless marked by all those sports of which 
the locality was susceptible. Catherine, though a little passee, looked 
exceedingly well, for, in order to render her appearance more attractive, 
she was dressed in white, and “all Greenwich,” says Lord Herbert, 
“ did not, on that day, contain a daintier dish of white bait than the 
Lady of Aragon.” The royal pair were crowned on the 24th of June, 
1509, being exactly three weeks after marriage, up to which period, at 
least, there was no indication of that Bluebeardism wdiich subsequently 
broke out with so much fury in the royal character. 

Henry had on his accession thrown himself into the arms of his 
grandmother, the old Countess of Richmond, upon whose advice he 


EXECUTION OF EMPSON AND DUDLEY. 


19 


CHAP. II. I 

acted in the selection of his ministers. The old lady died in the same 
month in which her grandson was married and crowned, at the respect- 



Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon. 


able age of sixty-eight; and it is a curious fact that she had been 
married three times, so that in his multiplicity of wives, Henry VIII. 
may be said to have simply improved upon the example set him by his 
grandmother.* 

The first political act of Henry the Eighth’s reign, was to lay the 
heads of Empson and Dudley upon the scaffold. These rapacious 
extortioners had been the tools of his father’s avarice, but had contrived 
to feather their own nests tolerably well; and Henry kept them in 
prison for the purpose of getting out of them the wealth they had 
acquired by their rapacity. He detained them in the Tower a whole 
year before he beheaded them, and continued to squeeze out of them 
everything they possessed, for he was one of those who never threw an 
orange away without thoroughly sucking it. Having drained it at 
length completely dry by about the 17th of August, 1510, he, on that 
day—to pursue the allegory of the orange—declined allowing them any 

* Her friend and counsellor, Jack Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, says of her, that “ » 
reddy witte she had to conceive all thyngs, albeit they were ryghte derke.” 

c 2 
































20 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


BOOK V 

L 


quarter, but sent them to Tower Hill, where execution was done upon 
both of them. 

Henry finding everything going smoothly in England, fell into the 
common error of those who having every comfort at home must needs 
look abroad for the elements of discord. He entered into a league 
against Louis XII. of France, in favour of Pope Julius II. and his 
father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon; but the latter kept helping himself 
to large slices of territory, and made use of his allies for the purpose of 
furthering his own interests. Henry’s troops were therefore compelled 
to play an ignoble part, being cooped up in a French town, while the 
other soldiers overran Navarre, and appropriated everything they could 
lay their hands upon. Amazed at their moderate success upon land 
they attempted to retrieve themselves by a sea-fight, but the ruler was 
not then found by which Britannia subsequently learned to rule the 
waves, and the French fleet escaping into Brest found shelter in their 
country’s bosom. 

In 1513, Henry being anxious to obtain ascendancy over the seas, 
appointed Sir Edward Howard, one of the sons of the Earl of Surrey, to 
accomplish the grand object. Howard was so exceedingly confident of 
success that he sent a private note requesting the king to come and see 
how beautifully he (Howard) would “ spifflicate”—for such w r as the 
word—the presumptuous enemy. Henry by no means relished the 
invitation, and replied to it by desiring Howard to “ mind his own 
business” as admiral. This nettled the naval commander, w r lio, during 
the engagement, jumped into one of the enemy’s ships, and could not 
jump back again; while Sir John Wallop, upon whom he had relied, 
exhibited little of that usefulness which his name seems to indicate. 
Poor Howard was, accordingly, killed; and Henry, flattered by his 
parasites, came to the resolution that no good would be done till he 
himself set out for France at the head of an army. 

In a few days he arrived off Boulogne, where he instructed the artillery 
to make as much noise as they could with their guns, in order that he 
might intimidate the foe, and encourage himself by the roaring of his 
own cannon. His object was undoubtedly to insinuate to the enemy, 
“We are coming in tremendous force, and so you had better keep out of 
our way, for fear of accidents.” 

Henry, who had various other great guns on board besides his 
artillery, was accompanied by Thomas Wolsey, his almoner, lately risen 
into favour, together with the celebrated Bishop Fox, and a number of 
courtiers. He passed his time very pleasantly at Calais for about 
three months, when he heard that the celebrated Bayard—the chevalier 
sans peur et sans reproche —was moving forward. The English king 
bounded on to his horse with the elasticity of Indian rubber, and 
advanced at the head of fifteen thousand men — Bishop Fox, with 
characteristic cunning, keeping in the rear, and Wolsey following the 
Fox at a prudent distance. 

Twelve hundred French approached under the cover of a regular 


CHAP. II.J 


HENRY AT BOULOGNE. 


21 

English log, which with a most anti-national spirit favoured the enemies 
of the country to which it owed its origin. Bayard would have com¬ 
menced an attack, but he was overruled by some of his companions; and 
Henry, thinking the foe afraid to “ come on,” sat himself down in a 
pavilion made of silk damask, foolishly believing that the art of the 
upholsterer could uphold the dignity of a sovereign. 

Thus he sat, like the proprietor of a gingerbread stall at a fair, until 
a terrific shower came on, and the silk streamers were streaming with 



Henry’s Tent, 


wet, and the satin chairs could no longer be sat-in with comfort or 
convenience. The tent was turned, literally, inside out by the wind, 
like an umbrella in a storm, and Henry was glad to exchange his gaudy 
booth for a substantial wooden caravan, that was speedily knocked 
together for his reception. Though the two armies did not fight they 
commenced operations by mining and countermining, but instead of 
making receptacles for gunpowder they were only making gutters for the 
rain, which took advantage of every opening. The Count of Angouleme 
(afterwards Francis I.) now arrived at head quarters, and scoured the 
country, which he was the better able to do from the quantity of water 
which had fallen on many parts of it. 






























































































































































































22 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


Henry now received a visit from the Emperor Maximilian, and the 
English king made the most magnificent preparations for the interview, 
he equipped himself and some of his nobles in gold and silver tissue— 
though it is said the latter wore a tissue of falsehoods, for their finery 
was all sham—and he borrowed every bit of jewellery in his camp for 
his own personal bedizenment. He had a garniture of garnets in his hat, 
and even his watch, a tremendous turnip, had a diamond, weighing 
several carats, on its face, while a magnificent ruby matched with the 
rubicundity of his forehead, over which the gem was gracefully disposed. 
The nobles were sprinkled all over with paste, and looked effective 
enough at the price which Henry had given for their embellishment. 
Maximilian, who was in mourning, presented a dismal contrast to all 
this finery, for he wore nothing but a suit of serge, which, however, 
turned out far more serviceable than the fancy costume of Henry and 
his courtiers. The rain came on so furiously that unless the silks were 
washing silks they must have been fearfully damaged by the wet, while 
the running of the hues one into the other caused Henry’s party to come 
off with—in one sense—flying colours. It was at length determined to 
make an attack upon the French, and the Emperor Maximilian having 
got his old serge doublet trimmed up with a red cross, and pinned an 
artificial flower in his hat, directed the operations of the English. The 
French cavalry began pretty well; but whether Maximilian looked so 
great a Guy as to terrify the horses, or through any other cause, it is 
certain that a panic ran through the ranks, and they commenced a retreat 
at full gallop, using their spurs with tremendous vehemence. 

One of the fugitives, a venerable Marshal, broke his baton in beating 
a retreat over the back of his charger; and Bayard, who had refused to 
run, seeing the baton of his comrade broken, exclaimed, “ Ha ! he has 
cut his stick!” which afterwards became a bye-word to describe the act 
of a fugitive. The illustrious Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche became 
• a prisoner, but thoroughly enjoyed the joke of his countrymen having 
run away, and laughingly called it the battle of the spurs, from the 
energy with which they had plunged their rowels into the flanks of their 
chargers. 

A meeting between Bayard, Maximilian, and Henry, has been 
described very graphically in the Histoire de Bon Chevalier ;* and it 
appears from this authority that the two latter bantered their prisoner 
in a somewhat uncourteous manner. Bayard contended that he had be¬ 
come captive by a voluntary surrender; upon which the emperor and 
the king burst out into a fit of rude laughter, as if they would have 
said, “ That’s a capital jokebut Bayard protested that he might have 
got away had he chosen to run for it. They only replied to him by say¬ 
ing “Well, well, my fine fellow, we’ve got you, and it matters little 
whether you took yourself into custody or how else you came here ; but 
here you unquestionably are, and there’s an end of the discussion.” 

After taking Tournay, where he held a number of tournaments, and 

* Vol. ii., page 80. 


CHAP. II.1 


THOMAS WOLSEY. 


23 


which was actually sacrificed by the inhabitants for the sake of a bad 
pun *---w T orse even than the accidental one in the text—Henry returned 
to England, and arrived on the 24th of October, 1513, at Richmond. 

Thus ended the expedition to France ; but important events had been 
happening at home, for the Earl of Surrey had been chevying the Scotch 
over the Cheviot Hills, and at last fought them at Flodden, where 
James IV. unfortunately fell; and the English queen, making a parcel of 
his coat, hat, and gloves, sent them to Henry as a proof of the dressing 
the Scotch had experienced. 

It had been intended to resume the war with France, but Louis XII. 
suggested a compromise, by which he married Mary, the sister of the 
English king, and Mary thus had the honour of mollifying the asperity 
of the feelings that the two monarchs had hitherto indulged. 

We have already mentioned the name of Wolsey, who accompanied 
Henry abroad in the capacity of almoner; and it is now time that we give 
some particulars of a person who played one of the most important 
parts in the drama of history 

Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich, in March, 1471, of humble 
parents; but the popular stoiy of his father having been a butcher is 
probably a fable, to which the fact of his having had a stake in the 
country has perhaps given some likelihood. It is doubtful whether he 
was brought up to the block, though he might have been obliged to give 
his head to it at a later period of his life, when he incurred his master’s 
displeasure. It has been said that Wolsey senior could not have been 
a butcher, because he left money to his son by will; but business must 
have been bad indeed if he could not bequeath a couple of legacies of 
thirteen-and-fourpence each, with one of six-and-sevenpence, and another 
of eleven shillings, in addition to a sum of ten marks, which constitute 
altogether the entire amount of cash that was actually disposed of by the 
old gentleman to his wife, his son, and his executors.-}- If the elder 
Wolsey was really a butcher, it is certain that he had not a sharper 
blade in his establishment than his son Tom, who was sent early to 
school, and having proceeded to the University of Oxford, got on so well 
as to acquire the name of the Boy Bachelor. He soon became a fellow, 
and was one of the cleverest young fellows in the College, where he was 
intrusted to educate the three sons of the Duke of Dorset. In this 
capacity, by the application of a great deal of flattery—or, as some 
would have termed it, Dorset Butter—while at home with the young 
gentlemen for the Christmas holidays, he got the patronage of their 
noble*father, who presented him with the rectory of Lymington. Here 
he is said to have disgraced himself by getting into a row at a fair, but 
we can scarcely believe that the clergyman of the parish would have for¬ 
gotten himself so far as to give his love of gaiety full swing, and allow 
him to carry absurdity to the height which such a proceeding seems to 

* The pun alluded to was couched in these words, which were used by the citizens : 
— ‘ Que Tournay riavoit jama ! s tournt ni encore ne tournerait 

f His will was published by. Dr. Fiddes, from the Registry at Norwich. 


24 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


indicate. He could not have very far compromised his character, or he 
would not have been employed by Henry VII., on delicate and important 
missions which a parson fresh from “ the fun of the fair ” would never 
have been allowed to execute. Some of his detractors have broadly 
asserted that Wolsey was inebriated, and fled in shame from his cure, 
but w 7 e really believe that he was never at any period of his life intoxi¬ 
cated with anything but ambition, which undoubtedly is quicker in 
turning the head than the strongest juice that ever dropped from the 
ripest juniper. Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, strongly recommended 
Wolsey to Henry VIII., who, already knowing something of the young 
man, made him King’s Almoner; and on taking Tournay. in France, 
hesitated whether he should bum it down, or make Wolsey its bishop. 
The latter of the two evils fell upon the town, which was placed under 
the ambitious churchman's ecclesiastical cognizance. He rose rapidly to 
the sees of Lincoln and York, became Lord High Chancellor of England, 
and, on the 7th of September. 1515, received his crowning honour, in 
the hat of a cardinal. 

We must now put Wolsey by for a little bit, though we shall have to 
bring him out again and again, for we must not keep others waiting by 
lingering too long in the accomplished churchman’s company. We left the 
princess Mary just married to Louis XII., though her heart had long been 
given to Charles Brandon, Viscount Lisle, who retained the principal of 
her affections, though the French king got for a time the interest. He 
however enjoyed it for only two months, when he died, and Brandon, 
the remainder-man, became the tenant in possession, by marrying Mary 
after three months’ widowhood. Henry was at first very angry with the 
match, but the young couple rushing into his presence like two 
repentant lovers in a farce, and Wolsey interceding with all the air of 
the “ smart servant,” the king was persuaded to give that cheapest of all 
donations—his blessing. Brandon’s good sense and modesty went some 
way in reconciling Henry, for Viscount Lisle never presumed upon his 
connection with the family of royalty. He did not talk continually of 
“ My brother-in-law the king,” as he might have done ; but he took the 
following motto, in which there is a strong indication of his “ knowing 
his place,” and being determined on keeping it. 

Clotli of gold do not despise, 

Though thou be match’d with cloth of frize; 

Cloth of frize he not too bold, 

Though thou be match’d with cloth of gold.* 

Francis I. had succeeded to the French throne and the Archduke 
Charles of Austria had come in for the whole of the Spanish monarchy 
by the death of his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon. He 
was a maternal grandfather in a double sense, for he had grown very 
old womanish, and the adjective maternal was by no means inappro¬ 
priate. Francis and Charles became competitors for the empire just 

* “ Granger's Biog. Hist.,” vol. i., p. 82. 


CHAP. II.j 


ELECTION OF EMPEROJR. 


25 


vacant by the death of Maximilian, and the countenance of Henry was 
eageily sought by both ol the disputants. Henry had formerly hoped 



Henry pardoning the young Couple. 


to have been himself a successful candidate, but finding he had. no 
chance, he wrote to Charles, saying he “ wished he might get it,” 
which were the genuine sentiments no doubt of the English sovereign. 
The election fell upon Charles, and Francis affected to take the conse¬ 
quence as if it had been of no consequence at all, though it was clearly 
otherwise. 

The election for the rank and dignity of Emperor was one of the most 
disgracefully corrupt proceedings that was ever witnessed, even in the 
palmiest days of the boroughmongering system in England, some 
centuries afterwards. The candidates were Francis I. of France, 
Charles V., King of Castile, Henry VIII. of England, and the Elector 
Frederic of Saxony. The bribery was on a scale of vastness never 











































































































































































































































20 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


before heard of, and it is said that Charles scattered his—or his people’s 
—money among the independent electors with frightful prodigality. The 
electors of Cologne, which was not then in such good odour as might 
have been expected from the pleasant purity of its Eau, pocketed no 
less than 200,000 crowns ; but the mother of Francis I. declared, that 
“ the electors, among them all, had not received from the king, her son, 
more than 100,000 crowns,”* so that the loss of his election is very 
easily accounted for. Francis, nevertheless, imagined he had secured 
five electors out of the seven; but these worthies, w r ho were dishonestly 
receiving bribes from both parties at once, eventually gave to Charles, 
who paid them best, the benefit of their suffrages. Poor Saxony, 
expecting in a contest with such powerful opponents that he might get 
“double milled,” resigned in favour of Charles; and Henry, whose 
committee had been sitting to conduct his election, until it was clear 
there would be nothing to conduct, threw his influence into the same 
scale. 

On the 28th of June, 1519, the polling commenced, and each elector 
as he came up to give his vote was, no doubt, received with the shouts 
and salutations that are usual on all similar occasions. When the 
Elector of Cologne appeared to plump for Charles, after having quite as 
plumply promised his support to Francis, the jeers of the populace were 
tremendous, and an egg was even thrown for the purpose of egging on 
the crowd to acts of violence. The unprincipled elector looked con¬ 
temptuously on the oval missile, as if he would have said that he did 
not care about submitting to the yolk, after the extensive “shelling out” 
that had already taken place for his benefit. 

The countenance of Henry was still the object of both their wishes, 
and Francis asked the English king for an interview, which was 
arranged to take place in France in the ensuing summer. Upon the 
appointment having been made, Charles ran over to England to be the 
first to get Henry’s ear, and seeing Wolsey’s influence, did his utmost 
to win over that wary individual. The latter secretly aspired to the 
papal chair, and it may perhaps be said that his origin is proved to have 
been that of a butcher’s son, because he began to look at everything 
with a pope’s eye, and hoped to eat his mutton in the Vatican. Such 
frivolous reasoning is so unworthy the dignity of history, that we reject 
it at once, and confine ourselves to the simple fact, that the triple 
crown of Rome was always running in or about the head of the ambitious 
churchman. 

The time now drew near for Henry to meet Francis I., who, thinking 
to flatter Wolsey, requested that the management of the gorgeous scene 
might be left entirely to the taste of the Cardinal. Wolsey’s reputation 
as a getter-up of spectacles was exceedingly well deserved, for even 
when at home, he lived in a style of gorgeous magnificence. Every 
apartment in his house at Hampton was a set scene of itself, with deco 
rations and properties of the most costly character. He kept eight 

* Ellis’s Letters, vol. i., p. 155. 


CHAP II.] THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 27 

hundred supernumeraries always about him as servants, “ of whom nine 
or ten were noblemen, fifteen knights, and forty esquires.”* Not contented 
with an ordinary chair, he always sat with a canopy over his head, and 
he allowed no one to approach him except in a kneeling attitude. His 
dress matched his furniture, for he wore a crimson satin surtout, with 
hat and gloves of scarlet, and even his shoes were silver-gilt—like a pair 
of electrotyped highlows. His liveries surpassed even those of the 
Sheriffs of London; and his cook positively wore satin or velvet, so 
that this functionary was dressed more daintily and delicately than the 
most recherche of his own dinners. Wolsey, when he appeared in public, 
carried an orange, stuffed with scents, in his hand ; for he used to say 
affectedly that there was always an exhalation from a vulgar crowd, which 
gave him the vapours. 

The preparations for the interview between Francis and Henry having 
been intrusted to such a master of all ceremonies as Cardinal Wolsey, 
could not fail to be made on a scale of unprecedented grandeur; and 
the place where the two monarcbs met acquired the name of the “ Field 
of the Cloth of Gold,” from the extreme gorgeousness of the scene in 
which they acted. The arrangements were nearly completed, and 
Henry had removed to Canterbury, for the convenience of the journey 
to France, when Charles of Spain, being jealous of the anticipated 
meeting, ran over to the Kentish coast, to say a few words to the 
English king before he left for the Continent. 

Charles was received in a most amicable manner, but happening 
to see the late Queen Dowager of France, then Duchess of Suffolk, 
who might, could, would, or should have been his own wife, he turned 
so spoony and sentimental, that he could take no pleasure in the 
festivities prepared for him. “No, thank you,none for me! ” was his 
almost uniform answer to every inquiry whether he would have a little 
of this, that, or the other, that was placed before him. He lost first his 
spirits, then his appetite, and ultimately his time, for he was fit neither 
for negociation nor anything else during his stay in England. Having 
remained four days, he went home, with a “ worm in the bud ” of his 
affections, and as he looked at the sea before him, he was overheard 
muttering that he should “ never get over it.” His courtiers thought he 
was alluding to the ocean but he was in reality soliloquising on the loss 
of his heart, which he left behind him; but happily this is a sort of 
parcel that can without much difficulty be recovered. On the day he 
re-embarked for Flanders, Henry set sail for France, having only put off 
his putting off out of compliment to his illustrious visitor. 

A plot of ground between Guisnes and Ardres was fixed upon as the 
place of meeting, and a temporary palace—of wood, covered with sail¬ 
cloth—was erected there, for the person and the suite of the English 
sovereign. Cunning workmen had painted the sacking at the top to 
look like square stones; but it was sacking, nevertheless, as the inmates 
found out in rainy weather. The walls glittered with jewels, like the 

* Fiddcs’ “ Life of Wolsey,” pp. 106, 107. 


28 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


gingerbread stalls at a fair, and the tables groaned, or rather, creaked, 
under massive plate, which proves that the wood must have been rather 
green which had been used in making the furniture. Francis, making up 
his mind not to be outdone, got an enormous mast, and throwing an 
immense rickcloth over the top, stuck it up umbrella-ways in the part of 
the field he intended to occupy. A whirlwind having come on, the old 
rickcloth got inflated with the height of its position, and was soon carried 
away by the tremendous puffing it experienced. The whole apparatus took, 
for a moment, the form of a balloon ; and the workmen, seeing it was all 
up, ran away just in time to avoid the consequences of a collapse, which 
almost instantly happened. Francis was glad to find more substantial 
lodgings in an old castle near the town of Ardres, where Wolsey speedily 
paid him a morning visit. The Cardinal, who had only intended to 
make a short call, remained two days, in which he arranged an additional 
treaty with the French king, who agreed to pay a large sum for the 
neutrality of England in continental matters, and “ as to Scotland,’’ 
said Francis, “ you and my mother shall settle that between you! ” 
“ I ? ” exclaimed Louisa of Savoy, with surprise, “ I don’t know anything 
about diplomatic affairs! ” but the Cardinal flattered the old lady that 
she did ; and, by blandly remarking “ he was positive they should not 
fall out,” he persuaded her to join him in the arbitration, for he felt 
pretty sure he should get the best of the bargain. 

Business being concluded, Henry took out of his portmanteau a new- 
dress of silver damask, ribbed with cloth of gold, and in this splendid 
suit of stripes he went forth to meet his brother Francis. The 7tli of 
June, 1520, and the valley of Andren, were the time and place of their 
first coming together, when, according to previous arrangement, they 
saluted and embraced on horseback. Had one waited for the other to 
dismount and advance, they might have been standing there to this day, 
but, by a clever act of equestrianism, they contrived to go through the 
form of introduction on the backs of two highly-trained steeds, to the 
great admiration of the circle in the midst of which they exhibited. 
Francis spoke first, but confined himself to a commonplace observation 
on the length of the distance he had come, and an allusion to the extent 
of his possessions and power. Henry replied somewhat cleverly, that 
“ the power and possessions of Francis were matters quite secondary in 
importance to Francis himself, whom he, Henry, had come a long way 
to see,” and thus contempt was adroitly blended with compliment. The 
royal couple then dismounted, and took a turn arm-in-arm, as if in 
friendly conversation, after which they went together into a tent and 
partook of a very sumptuous banquet. Spice and wine w T ere served 
out in great profusion, in a spirit of liberality equivalent to that which 
dispenses “ hot elder, with a rusk included, a penny a glass,” from many 
modern refectories. There was plenty of a sort of stuff called “ipocras” 
given to the people outside ; but as we never tasted any “ ipocras,” and 
strongly suspect that it is a decoction from ipecacuanha, we cannot 
answer for the quality of the article in which the people “ outside ” were 
allowed to luxuriate 


CHAP. III.] 


HENRY THE EIGHTH. 


29 


CHAPTER THE THIRD 

HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONTINUED). 

fter the banquet the kings 
came out of the tent, and Hall, 
the English annalist, got a near 
view of the French sovereign. 
Whether Hall had been im¬ 
mersed too thoroughly in “ipo- 
cras ” to allow of his taking a 
clear view of matters in general, 
or from anv other cause, it is 
certain that the picture he gives 
of Francis I. is very unlike the 
portrait which Titian has left 
to us. Hall makes the French 
king “ high-nosed and big¬ 
lipped,” with “ great eyes and 
long feet,” as if Hall saw every¬ 
thing double while under the 
influence of “ ipocras ; ” but 
Titian, by toning down the 
nose, so as to make its bridge in conformity with the arches of the 
eyebrows, has turned out a not unpleasing portrait of the great original 
It had been previously announced that jousts would form part of the 
festivities; and accordingly, on the 11th of June, these entertainments 
began in a very spirited manner. The “ braying ” of trumpets made 
an appropriate introduction to the sports, and the overture was echoed 
by braying of a more animated character. Each king fought five battles 
every day, and of course came off victoriously in every one ; for the 
nobles and gentlemen of those times were most complacent in submitting 
their heads as dummies to aid the amusements of royalty. 

The season of the Field of the Cloth of Gold terminated with a 
fancy dress ball, in which Henry made himself very conspicuous by the 
character and richness of his disguises. The vastness of his wardrobe 
enabled him to astonish every one by the effectiveness of his “making- 
up,” and two or three of his masks were models of quaint ugliness. 

At the end of a fortnight of foolery and feasting, the two monarchs 
separated, and the memorable meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold 
passed from the hands of the costumier, the carpenter, and the cook, 
into those of the historian. Its chief result was to beggar many of the 
French and English nobles who had taken part in it, and gone to 
expense they could not support, to outdo each other in magnificence 

VOL. II I) 































30 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


Thus did the Field of the Cloth of Gold prepare the way for a sort of 
threadbare seediness, into which many belonging to both nations were 
plunged, by their having done up themselves in an insane attempt to 
outdo each other. 

Our account of the great meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold 
would not be complete without the following anecdote. Francis rose 
very early one morning, and made his way to the quarters of Henry, 
who was in bed and fast asleep on the arrival of his illustrious visitor. 
The French lung shook the English monarch cordially by the whipcord 
tassel on the top of his night-cap, when the latter, springing out of bed, 
responded to the playful summons. “You see,” said Francis, “ I am up 
with the lark ! ” to which Henry added, “And I am ready for the bird 
you have specified.” The English king then expressed himself much 
obliged for such a mark of attention, and cast over the neck of Francis 
“ a splendid collar,” being, no doubt, the “ false one ” taken off on the 
night previous. It is believed by some that Henry, not knowing the 



Politeness of Francis to Henry. 




































































































































































































































































CHAP. III.] 


HENRY ARRIVES IN LONDON. 


31 

object of the intrusion, collared the intruder at once; but the version of 
the story which we have already given appears to be the more probable. 
Francis, in his turn, clasped a bracelet on Henry’s arm, or rather, 
according to an ill-natured reading of the affair, one cuffed the other for 
the collaring he had experienced. Henry rang his bell for his valet, 
but Francis would not permit the attendance of any servant, but laid 
out Henry’s clean things with his own hand, taking in his shaving water, 
putting out his highlows to be cleaned, and taking them in again.* 

Henry, on his return from the Field of the Cloth of Gold, took 
Gravelines in his way, and gave a look in upon Charles of Castile, who 
saw him home as far as Calais. This far-seeing prince saw that Wolsey 
had it all his own way with the English king, and the emperor took 
every possible opportunity of trying to “ come over ” the proud prelate. 
Charles promised his “ vote and interest ” to Wolsey, in the event of 
any vacancy occurring in the papal chair, and gratified his avarice by 
making him Bishop of Placentia and Badajos. 

Henry, after making a short stay at Calais, returned to Dover, and 
reached London without a penny in his pocket, for both he and his 
courtiers were completely cleaned out by their recent extravagance. On 
the king’s arrival, Buckingham got himself into trouble by his impertinent 
remarks on the expedition to France, and the dreadful w r aste of money 
that it had occasioned. He particularly pointed his sarcasms against 
Wolsey as the originator of all the expensive fooleries that had been 
committed, and he took every opportunity of gainsaying or otherwise 
insulting the upstart cardinal. On one occasion, Buckingham had been 
holding a basin for Henry to wash his hands, when Wolsey, anxious to 
have a finger in everything belonging to the king, plunged his paws into 
the same water. The duke, desirous of administering a damper to the 
cardinal, spilt a quantity of the liquid over his shoes, when Wolsey 
becoming angry, threatened to “set upon his skirts,” which meant in 
other words, that the cardinal would be down upon him. 

There is no doubt that Wolsey took every opportunity of damaging 
Buckingham ; but the duke himself was obnoxious to the king, and gave 
particular offence by hiring a servant who had been a member of the 
royal household. Buckingham had been leading the life of a country 
gentleman, at what he modestly called his “ little place ” in Glouces¬ 
tershire, when he received an invitation to court; and, foolishly flattering 
himself that this little attention was shown to him on account of his 
merits, he unsuspectingly obeyed the summons. When he had pro¬ 
ceeded some way on his journey, he found he was dodged by three 
disagreeable looking fellows in block tin, who turned out to be members 
of the king's body guard, and who were sure to be at his heels whenever 
he looked round over bis own shoulder. 

Having put up at Windsor for the night, he had no sooner been shown 

* The minuteness with which these particulars are detailed, may cause a doubt of then- 
veracity, hut we refer the reader to Mr. Fraser Tytler’s “ Life of Henry VIII.;” in page 
123 of which the anecdote we have given is fully recorded. 

D 2 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


82 

to his bedroom than he saw the same three fellows loitering in the yard 
of the inn he was stopping at Once or twice, after retiring to rest, he 



The Duke of Buckingham suspects that he is watched. 


looked out of his window and fancied he saw one of the three lmiglits 
crouching in a corner beneath his lattice, and he called out to the figure 
to be off; but the approach of daylight revealed to him the outline of an 
innocent water-butt, which he had during the hours of darkness impera¬ 
tively desired to quit the premises. “ I know you well,” he cried 
several times to the tub, “and you had better go at once;” but his 
expostulations were of course disregarded in the quarter to which he 
was idly addressing them. Declining to stop at Windsor, he deter¬ 
mined to breakfast the next morning at Egham; but he had no 
sooner entered the coffee-room than he was insulted by one Thomas 
Ward, a creature of the court, which completely took away the 
appetite of the duke, of whom it was cruelly said that he could eat 
neither egg nor ham in the hostel at Eg-ham. He then rode on to 
Westminster, where he got into his barge and pulled down with the 
tide as far as Greenwich, but stopped at Wolsey’s house on the way, 
and sent in his card to the cardinal, who sent out word that he was 
indisposed, and declined seeing his visitor. “ Umph,” said the duke, 
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’ll step in, and take a glass of wine, if 













































CIIAP. III.] 


EXECUTION OF BUCKINGHAM. 


33 


you ve no objection ! ” After a good deal of whispering among Wolsey’s 
servants, Buckingham was shown into the cellar, where he took a 
draught of wine from the wood; but finding no preparations made for 
him, he changed colour—that is to say, he looked rather blue—and 
proceeded on his journey. As he continued pulling along the river, a 
four-oared, manned by yeomen of'the guard, whose captain acted as 
•coxswain, hailed Buckingham in his barge, which was instantly boarded 
by the crew of the cutter. 

Ihe duke having been towed ashore, was at once arrested, and 
marched in custody down Thames Street, with a mob at his heels, all 
the way to the Tower. There were a few cries of “ Shame ! ” and other 
demonstrations of disapproval, but the sympathy of the bystanders 
having evaporated in a few yells and a mild shower of cabbage leaves, 
Buckingham was left in the hands of his captors. On the 13th of 
May, 1521, Buckingham was brought to trial on the charge of tempting 
Friar Hopkins to make traitorous prophecies. This Hopkins was an. 
old fortune-telling impostor, who had predicted all sorts of good luck to 
poor Buckingham, none of which ever fell to his lot; so that he had the 
double mortification of having been cheated out of his cash, for promises 
that never came true, and being punished for them just as much as if 
they had all been literally verified. Buckingham defended himself 
with great courage ; and on being convicted as a traitor, he solemnly 
declared that he was “ never none : ” an indignant mode of exculpation, 
in which grammar was sacrificed to emphasis. He died, very cou¬ 
rageously, on the 17th of May, 1521, and the barbarous ceremony of 
his execution created the greatest disgust among the populace. 

Almost at the very moment that Henry was being guilty of the enor¬ 
mity we have described, he was putting himself forward as the champion 
of Religion. He professed the greatest horror of the errors and heresies 
of Luther, whom, in a letter to Louis of Bavaria, he proposed to burn, 
books and all, in an early bonfire. Finding that the great Reformer 
was not to be thus made light of, Henry turned author, and by takingup 
the pen, he, instead of consigning his antagonist to the flames, regularly 
burnt his own fingers. There is no doubt that the royal scribbler had 
been thoroughly well crammed for the task he undertook; and Leo X. 
having read the book, was good-natured enough to say, in the language 
of our old friend the Evening Paper , that “it ought to be on every 
gentleman’s table.” He published a sort of review of it in a special 
bull, and made the remark, that the author might fairly be called “ The 
Defender of the Faith,” a title which was not only adopted by Henry 
himself, but has been held, to this very day, by all subsequent English 
sovereigns. 

Francis and Charles, the respective monarclis of France and Spain, 
had all this time continued their bickering, and they at length agreed 
to ask the arbitration of Henry. He declined interfering personally, 
but sent Wolsey in his stead, and the cardinal arrived at Calais on the 
30tli of July, 1521, with a magnificent retinue. His establishment 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK V 


31 

consisted of lords, bishops, doctors, knights, squires, and gentlemen in 
crimson-velvet coats, with gold chains round their necks, which gave to 
the whole party an aspect of exceeding flashiness. Wolsey, notwith¬ 
standing the number and splendour of his followers, was at a very trifling 
expense, for he billeted the whole party at Bruges upon the unfortunate 
emperor, or rather upon his more unfortunate subjects, who were ordered 



The citizens of Bruges supplying Wolsey’s suite with provisions. 


b\ their sovereign to find everything that was wanted and put it all 
down to him in that doubtful document, the bill, which between a poten¬ 
tate and his people seldom meets with settlement. Rations of candles, 
wine, and sugar *, were served out every evening to the whole of 

* Cavendish. 




















































































































































































CHAP. III.J 


WOLSEY A CANDIDATE FOR THE POPEDOM. 


35 


Wolsey’s suite, so tliat all who wanted it had the ingredients of grog, 
while the candles enabled such as were so disposed to make a night of it. 

After spending ten days in the enjoyment of every luxury, at the cost 
of the contending parties—thus showing that he understood how to make 
the very most of his position as an arbitrator—Wolsey suddenly declared 
that he saw no chance of Charles and Francis being reconciled. The 
wily cardinal having been regularly got hold of by Charles, drew up a 
treaty extremely favourable to the emperor, and even arranged that he 
should marry Henry’s daughter Mary, though the young lady had been 
previously betrothed to the son of Francis. 

This alteration in the domestic arrangements of the parties concerned 
was simply declared to be “ for the good of Christendom,”* and Henry 
agreed to the plan with a nonchalant assurance that he really thought it 
the best thing that could be done, for he did not see “ how his said 
affairs might have been better handled. ”f Pope Leo X., who was in 
league^ with Wolsey, the Emperor, and Henry, in their joint arrange¬ 
ments for smashing France, agreed to give the dispensation for the 
proposed marriage; but Leo died before the nuptial treaty had been 
ratified. 

On the death of Leo X. Wolsey lost no time in offering himself as a 
candidate for the vacant popedom. Secretary Pace was sent off at a 
slapping pace to Pome, to see the members of the conclave, and solicit 
their votes and interests for the English cardinal. Pace, however, 
seems to have been too slow to be of any use, and Adrian, Cardinal of 
Tortosa, who was put up almost in joke, and certainly to create a diversion 
against Giulio de Medici, one of the other candidates, was returned by a 
large majority. Wolsey’s name does not appear to have been even 
mentioned on the occasion, and Pace took no step to further his 
employer’s interests. 

Francis having been thoroughly disgusted at the treatment he had 
experienced, tried, in the first place to win Henry back to his cause by 
entreaties, and next by intimidation, in pursuance of which he shabbily 
stopped the pension of the English sovereign. When two kings fall 
out, their subjects are usually the sufferers ; and accordingly the 
English in France, and the French in England, became the objects of 
royal spitefulness. Francis stopped all the British vessels in his ports, 
and arrested the merchants, while Henry took his revenge by impri¬ 
soning the French ambassador, and making a wholesale seizure of all 
property belonging to Frenchmen. At length the English monarch 
became so angry, that he sent a challenge by the Clarencieux Herald 
offering to fight Francis in single combat, that each might have the 
satisfaction of a gentleman; but whether one refused to go out, or the 
other drew in, we are not aware, for we only know that the dispute did 
not end in a duel. 

Doubts have been thrown upon the sincerity of Henry in thus 
inviting Francis to a personal encounter, but there is every reason to 

* Galt’s Life of Wolsey, book ii, page 43. + State Papers. 


3G 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


believe that, in the words of the Bell's Life of the period, “ the 
British Pet meant business, though the Gallic Cock, having already won 
his spurs in other quarters, was not disposed to place them in jeopardy ” 
Henry, with the customary determination of the English character, had, 
no doubt, put himself regularly into training for the event to come off, 
and it is not unlikely that he may have frequently amused himself by a 
little practice on the effigy of his intended antagonist. The skill he 



Henry practising previous to challenging Francis. 


thus acquired in planting his blows and putting in the necessary punish¬ 
ment at the proper points, would have been highly serviceable had he 
ever been allowed to meet his man ; and it is even said that a bottle of 
claret was placed in the middle of the head of the figure, so that Henry 
might fully realise the result of his sparring exercise. We know not 
how far we may put faith in these ancient records, but we are justified 
in giving them to the reader, who will separate, no doubt, the wholesome 
corn of fact from the chaff of mere tradition. 

In the meantime Charles came over on a visit to his intended 
father-in-law, and was introduced to his infant bride, who was a child in 
arms, at his first interview. Henry and Charles indulged in a succes¬ 
sion of gaieties, for which neither possessed the means, and Charles 
even borrowed money of Henry, while the latter made up the deficiency 
by running into debt to a frightful extent with his own people. 




















































































































































































CHAP. III.J 


ORIGIN OF THE INCOME-TAX. 


37 


The king now began to find that he “ must have cash,” and he at 
ouce applied to Wolsey to assist him in raising more money. On these 
occasions Henry spoke in the most flattering manner to the cardinal, 
calling him endearingly his “ Linsey Wolsey,” in a word, “ his com¬ 
forter.” The prelate readily entered into his master's views, but 
candidly pointed out the difficulties of extracting anything more from 
the London merchants. They had lately advanced twenty thousand 
pounds in a forced loan, and it was determined to vary the demand 
upon them, by substituting direct taxation for the empty form of 
borrowing. Wolsey ordered the mayor, the aldermen, and the most 
substantial citizens of London to attend at his chambers,* when he 
announced to them the fact that the sovereign was hard up, and 
required pecuniary assistance. “ What, again !” cried a voice which the 
cardinal pretended not to hear, but proceeded to say that he should 
require a return of the amount of their annual monies from all of 
them. This proposition was the origin of that income-tax with which 
England has since been burdened; and the lovers of antiquity will 
feel some consolation in the knowledge that they suffer under a 
grievance which is hallowed by its ancient origin. There is to many a 
great comfort in being victimised under venerable institutions, and 
there are individuals who would rather be plundered in conformity with 
what are termed time-honoured principles, than be fairly dealt with upon 
any new system. 

While, however, we are talking of the simpletons of the present 
day, the dupes and victims of the period of Henry VIII. are being 
kept waiting in the presence of Wolsey. “Gentlemen,” said the 
cardinal, “ the country is in danger, and the king wants your hearts; ” 
an announcement which was received with cheers of assent, until it was 
followed up by a declaration that lie must also try the strength of their 
pockets. Murmurs of dissent followed this intimation; but Wolsey 
went on boldly to say that the king would only require one-tenth of 
what they Had, and if they could not live on the other nine-tenths, he 
did not know how they would ever be satisfied. “How will his 
Majesty take the contribution ?” at length exclaimed one of the 
aldermen. “ In money, plate, or jewels,” cried the cardinal; “ but at 
any rate the thing must be done, and therefore go about it.”f A 
promise was made that the money should be repaid out of the first 
subsidy, which would have been a sort of improvement upon the old 
practice of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, for it would have been 
picking Peters two pockets at once, and ransacking one under the 
pretext of replenishing the other. 

Henry certainly had the knack of making his people’s money go a 
great way, for it went so far when it passed into his hands, that it never 

* Supposed to have been over the gateway of Inner Temple Lane, where Henry and 
Wolsey shared the rooms now occupied by their successors, Honey and Skelton, the 
hair-dressers, 

f Hall. 


38 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V, 


came back again. The enormous sums he had extorted from the 
citizens soon melted away in dinner parties, pageants, and other 
expenses, so that he was at last, after a lapse of eight years, obliged to 
summon a Parliament. It was opened in person by the king, and the 
Commons elected Sir Thomas More as their speaker. 

Sir Thomas More presented one of those rare unions of wisdom and 
waggery which may occasionally be found, and he was often sent for to 
the palace to make jokes for his sovereign. The king would often take 
him out on the leads at night, where, after scrambling through the 
cock-loft, and getting out upon the tiles. Sir Thomas and his royal 
pupil would stand for an hour at a time, conversing on the subject of 
astronomy. The dryness of the topic was ever and anon relieved by 
the salient wit of More, who had a new joke for every new star, and 
appropriate puns for all the planets. He was the original author of that 
brilliant but ancient series of pleasantries on the “ milky whey,” which 
have since become so universally popular; and to him may perhaps be 
attributed the venerable but not sufficiently appreciated remark, that the 
music of the spheres must proceed from the band of Orion. 

The king and Wolsey congratulated each other on having got Tom 
More as Speaker, for they thought he would act like one of themselves, 
and that he would soon laugh the people out of all the money they 
might be required to furnish. Henry and the cardinal foolishly 
imagined that the man who sometimes made a joke could never be 
serious; but they found out their mistake, for he proved himself an 
excellent man of business when occasion required. Wolsey thought to 
produce an effect by attending the House in person, and making a 
speech on that most unpromising topic the “ crisis,” though it was not 
such a threadbare subject in those days as in our own, when a “ crisis ” 
may almost be looked for as a quarterly occurrence. Happily, if we 
are remarkable for our rapidity in getting a “ crisis ” up, we have also 
a wonderful knack of putting it down again with equal promptitude. 

The speech of Wolsey was listened to without reply; for, every 
member of the House considering the cardinal’s intrusion a breach of 
privilege, remained mute and motionless Irritated by their silence, 
the crafty churchman called up one of the members by name, and 
asked him for a speech; but the call might just as well have been 
for a song, since the individual indicated did nothing more than rise 
up and sit down again. Finding it impossible to get a good word, or 
indeed any word at all from the Commons, the cardinal lost his temper, 
and declared that, having come from the king, he should certainly 
wait for an answer; but Tom More, the Speaker—who, by the bye, 
deserved the title, for he was the only one that spoke—began to show 
his wit by saying that the fact was, the Commons were too modest to 
open their mouths in the presence of so great a personage. Wolsey 
withdrew in dudgeon, and after a few days’ debate, it was at length 
agreed to give the money that had been asked, but to take five years to 
pay it in. Though Henry would no doubt have been perfectly willing 


CHAP. III.] 


DEATH OF POPE ADRIAN. 


39 


to make a sacrifice for ready money, and allow a considerable discount 
on a cash transaction, his minister tried to accelerate the mode of 
payment without offering any equivalent for a restriction of the term 
of credit. 

The autumn of the year 1525 was rendered remarkable by the* 
confusion into which the Londoners were thrown, in consequence of the 
almanack-makers and astronomers having tried to give an impetus to 
their trade by throwing into the market a parcel of very alarming 
prophecies. It was predicted that the rains would be so tremendous 
as to convert the whole wealth of the metropolis into floating capital, 
and the merchants, fearing they might not be able to keep their heads 
above water, ran in crowds to the suburbs. Several parted with every¬ 
thing they possessed, and their foolish conduct in making their 
arrangements for being swamped, formed a precedent, no doubt, for a 
case of recent occurrence, in which an individual of average income, 
having been led away by a prophecy that the world had only two more 
years to run, invested the whole of his property in the largest possible 
annuity he could procure for two years, being under the firm impression 
that beyond that time neither he nor his heirs, executors, or assigns, 
would have the opportunity of enjoying a farthing of any surplus. As 
the world did not keep the appointment that had been made for it by 
the calculator of its final arrangements, he was left without a penny 
when the time he had assigned for its duration was up; and thus many 
had got rid of everything in 1525, under the expectation that all 
their sorrows and possessions would be drowned in the inundation that 
did—not happen. During the time the panic prevailed, a few of the 
tradesmen and artificers did their best to put it to a profitable account, 
and a turner of the time, who was so clever at his business that he could 
turn a penny out of anything, constructed several thousand pairs of 
stilts, and placing them in his window, labelled “ Stilts for the 
inundation,” he obtained numerous customers. 

Wolsey’s attention was suddenly called off from matters at home, 
by a fresh vacancy in the Popedom, occasioned by the death of 
Adrian. The English cardinal immediately despatched a letter to his 
royal master, saying how unfit he was for the pontificate ; when ITenry, 
instantly taking the hint, and saying to himself, “ Oh ! ah ! exactly f 
I see what Wolsey wants,” wrote off strongly to Rome, in favour of 
his election. Powerful efforts were made to secure his return, and 
push him to the top of the pole ; but though he got several votes, he 
was completely beaten by Giulio de Medici, who was elected to the 
papal chair by a very large majority. Wolsey bore his disappointment, 
to all appearances, exceedingly well; but the probability is, that he saw 
the policy of keeping on good terms with the new pope, who made 
the cardinal his legate for life, and granted him a bull empowering 
him to suppress a number of monasteries, for the purpose of taking the 
money they possessed to endow his own colleges 

Plenrv and Wolsey declared that the cash should be devoted to 


40 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK V. 


“patting down” that “ Monster Luther,”as they sometimes called him, 
or that “fellow Luther,” as they spoke of him now and then, by way of 

change, though his fel¬ 
low did not exist at the 
period when the term 
was applied to him 
Among the many irons 
that Henry now had in 
the fire was an Italian 
iron, with which he stood 
a pretty fair chance of 
burning his fingers ; for 
he had interfered in the 
disputes between Fran¬ 
cis I. of France, and the 
Emperor Charles, who 
was at war in Italy. 

Francis had laid himself 
down on the pavement 
before Pavia, resolved 
to leave no stone un¬ 
turned to place a curb 
on the foe, and pave his 
own way to victory. As 
he lay under the walls 
the cream of the Im¬ 
perial army was poured 
down upon him, with a 
savage violence that 
causes the blood to cur¬ 
dle at the bare recital. 

Thoroughly soured in 
his hopes, Francis plunged into the very thick of the Imperial cream, 
and beating around him with his sword in all directions, reduced seven 
men, with his own hand, to the inanimate condition of whipped syllabubs. 
His valour availed him little, for he was removed—to adopt the spelling 
of the period—in custardy. He was kept in captivity in Spain, at the 
strong fortress of Pizzichitone, from which he wrote home to his mother 
—probably for the means of replenishing his sac de nuit —and con¬ 
cluded his note with the memorable words, “ Tout est perdu hors 
Vhonneur which—for the benefit of that portion of the public who 
may have learnt their “ French without a master,” and have, conse¬ 
quently, never mastered it at all—we translate into “ All is lost, 
excepting honour.” 

Francis being now completely down, Henry and Wolsey proposed to 
Charles that they should combine in making the very most of the help 
less position of their prostrate enemy Fortunately for the French 



Election of Pope. Getting to the top of the pole. 



























CHAr. 111.] 


LIBERATION OF FRANCIS. 


41 


king, his two opponents were not only deficient in funds, but had begun 
to quarrel; on the old principle, perhaps, that when Poverty stalks in 
at the door, Love hops out at the window. The pay of Charles’s forces 
had fallen fearfully into arrear, and they declared they would no longer 
go on fighting upon half salaries. It was therefore determined to bring 
the military season to a close; and the grand ballet of action, having for 
its plot the invasion of France—of which Henry had drawn out the 
scheme, and which was to have put forward the strength of a double 
company, comprising a powerful combination of the English and Im¬ 
perial troupe —was postponed for an indefinite period. 

Henry, who was ready to sell himself to either party, finding Charles 
too poor to purchase him, offered himself without reserve to Francis. 
Terms were soon arranged, by which Henry was to receive by instal¬ 
ments two millions of crowns, with a permanent annuity when the chief 
sum was paid off; and Wolsey was also handsomely provided for—at 
least in the shape of promises. While the agreement was most solemnly 
ratified by Francis himself and the chief of the French nobility, the 
Attorney and Solicitor-General of France privately popped a protest on 
to the file, in order that the king, who was particular about his honour, 
might not have his scruples shocked should he subsequently feel disposed 
to break his word and fly off from his agreement. He found considerable 
difficulty in effecting his release without swearing to at least a dozen 
things he never intended to perform, and when the document was 
brought to him, full of concessions to Charles, he affixed his signature 
with the indifference of a man putting his name to a bill, regardless of 
the amount, which lie does not mean to liquidate. He had no sooner 
got out of custody, and found himself comfortably seated before his 
palace fire, than Sir Thomas Cheney and Dr. Taylor walked in with a 
message from Henry VIII., to congratulate Francis on his delivery 
“ If you ’ll take my advice,” said one of the visitors, at the same time 
handing his card, with 

JBr. (Canfar, 

upon it, to give weight to his words, “ you will pay no attention to the 
liabilities you have entered into with regard to the Emperor.” “ Indeed, 
Doctor, I. don’t mean to trouble myself upon the subject,” was the king’s 
reply; “and in fact I have kept up a running accompaniment of private 
protests to every obligation I have undertaken.” Dr. Taylor explained 
to him that he was on the safe side, for the bonds he had given were bad 
in law, having been executed while the king was under duress, and 
therefore not legally responsible. Thus did the chivalrous Francis, who 
had written so nobly about having lost everything except his honour, 
present an early instance, of which later times have furnished so many, 
of the largest talkers being the smallest doers, or perhaps rather the 
greatest dos in the universe. 

We have now to relate a curious personal anecdote of Henry VIII., 


42 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


which might have caused a considerable abridgment of his reign, much 
in the same way that the want of strength in the bowl in which the 
three wise men of Gotha went to sea, put a premature period to their 
little history.* Henry, in his early manhood, was one day running 
after a hawk, perhaps to put a little salt upon its tail in the idle hope 
of catching it. The bird was actively retreating before its royal 
pursuer, and had just quitted a hedge by hopping the twig, when it 
traversed a ditch on the other side, which Henry endeavoured to clear 
by the aid of his leaping-pole. The attempt somehow failed, and the 
monarch pitching on to his head in the soft mud, sunk into it as far as 
his neck, and became planted with his legs in the air for several 
seconds. Happily a footman named Edmund Moody—“ You all know 
Tom Moody ” though you may never have heard of Edmund—came up 
at the instant and pulled the king up from the ground by the roots—at 
least by the roots of his hair—with wondrous promptitude. Had this 
accident proved fatal, Henry would have been the first instance of a 
monarch losing his crown by being planted instead of supplanted, 
which had been the fate of some that had preceded him. 

It is now time for us to speak of the commencement of that spirit of 
Bluebeardism which ultimately gave the most glaring colouring to 
Henry’s character. He had always been a little flighty and indiscri¬ 
minate in his attentions to the fair sex, but he had hitherto treated 
Catherine with respect, until he met with Anne Boleyn, or Bullen, 
the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was descended from a former 
Lord Mayor of London, but by a series of clever match-making—a 
talent for which was inherited by Miss Anne—the family had succeeded 
in allying itself, by marriage, to some of the proudest aristocracy in the 
land. 

One of their earliest “ dodges ” had been to repair the plebeian word 
Bullen, by omitting the U and substituting an O, which got it to Bollen. 
In the course of time, having been allowed an inch in the way of 
license, they took an L, or at least one liquid absorbed another, and 
the word now stood Bolen. Subsequently a Y, without a why or 
wherefore, was dropped in, and the Bullens, who had probably acquired 
their name, originally, from having been landlords, or perhaps potboys, 
at the “ Bull,” had now assumed the comparatively elegant title of 
Boleyn, which has since become so famous in history. Sir Thomas 
Boleyn, the father of Nancy, had long lived about the court, and had 
been employed as a deliverer of messages, or ticket-porter, for Henry VIII., 
on some important occasions. Anne, who was born in the year 1507, 
had in very early life gone out to service as maid—of honour—to the 
king’s sister, Mary, who, when going over to be married to Louis XII., 

* “ Three wise men of Gotha 

Went to sea in a bowl ; 

Had the bowl been stronger 

My story would have been longer .”—Old Nursery Ballad. 

Though the fact is not stated, the inference clearly is, that the “ wiso men ” bowled 
themselves out of existence by that rash proceeding. 


CHAP. IIl.l 


ANNE BOLEYN. 


43 


took the girl abroad, where she picked up a few accomplishments. On 
Mary’s returning home, a widow, Anne Boleyn found another situation 
with Claude, the wife of Francis I., but after remaining in another 
family or two for a short time in France, she returned to England, 
where we find her, in 1527, engaged as maid of honour to Catherine of 
Aragon. 

Henry having become deeply enamoured of Miss Boleyn, who had 
shown a strong determination to stand no nonsense, was suddenly 
seized with religious scruples as to his marriage with the queen; for he 
found out, seventeen years after the event, that he had done wrong in 
allying himself with his brother’s widow. The fact of her being now an 
oldish lady of forty-three added no doubt considerably to the pious horror 
of the king at the step which he had taken. He accordingly began to 
think seriously of a divorce ; and when Wolsey was sounded on the sub¬ 
ject, the cardinal, for reasons of his own, yielded a prompt concurrence. 
He was anxious to pay off Catherine on account of a quarrel he had had 
with her nephew the emperor; and thus, in the words of the poet of 
Dumbarton Castle, 

“ He fought to consummate his fiendish part 
By breaking a defenceless female’s heart.” 

3- EItv’ .- 111 x 

He was sent as an ambassador to Francis, ostensibly to arrange about 
the marriage of Henry’s only daughter Mary, but really, as it is believed, 
to induce the French king to consent that Wolsey should be a sort of 
acting pope during the investment of the castle of St. Angelo, where the 
Spaniards and Germans had made the real pontiff a prisoner. 

Poor Clement bore his ill fortune with patience, though, as long as the 
investment of the castle lasted, he used to say it was one of the most 
unprofitable investments in which he had ever been involved, and that 
nothing but the excessive tightness prevented him from selling out, for 
he was quite tired of the security 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGIAND. 


[BOOK V. 


41 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONTINUED). 

The reign of Henry VIII. would become tedious were it not for the 
privilege we have assumed of dividing it into chapters ; though we shall 
not follow the example of the melodramatists who suppose fifteen years 
to have elapsed between each of their acts, and thus carry on their 
plots by means of the imagination of their audience. It is true that 
many of the events of Henry’s reign are dark enough to cause a wish 
that we might be allowed to omit them; but we must not give up to 
squeamishness what we owe to posterity. 

We have not yet come to the catalogue of his various female victims, 
and we have yet to describe those matrimonial freaks upon which we 
would gladly have put a ban by forbidding the banns, had we lived three 
centuries in advance of our present existence. We must, however, 
speak the truth; and though we might imitate the author of the play 
called The Wife of Seven Husbands, who requested the public to consider 
that a husband had elapsed between each act, we will not call upon our 
readers to ’imagine that a wife of Henry VIII. has elapsed between 
each chapter. 

We will now resume our narrative, and in the first place look after 
Wolsey, whom we left under orders to proceed to the French dominions ; 
and as the cardinal must by this time have commenced the passage 
across, we will take him at once out of his unpleasant position, and 
land him at Boulogne. 

Wolsey’s reception in France was like that of a royal personage, and 
had all the inconveniences of such a compliment; for the firing of the 
guns at Boulogne frightened his mule, who had not been trained to 
stand fire, and who indulged in a kick-up of the most extraordinary 
character. This interview with Francis resulted in three treaties, which 
were concluded on the 18th of August, 1527,* by the first of which it 
was agreed that the Princess Mary should marry young Francis, Duke 
of Orleans, iustead of old Francis, his father, a point that had hitherto 
been an open question; the second treaty concluded a peace, and the 
third stipulated that nothing done by the pope during his captivity 
should take effect, but that as long as Clement was in durance, which it 
required all his fortitude to endure, Wolsey should have the management 
of ecclesiastical affairs in England. The pope himself good-naturedly sent 
over a bull to confirm the cardinal in his new powers; and “here cer¬ 
tainly,” says Lord Herbert, “ began the taste our king took of governing, 
in chief, the clergy.” His lordship might have added with truth that 

* Lord Herbert’s Life of Henry VIII., page 160 of the quarto edition, 1741. 


CHAI\ IV.] 


RECEPTION OF WOLSEY AT BOULOGNE 


45 


Wolsey had performed the wonderful physical feat of biting off his own 
nose to be revenged upon the rest of his face, for it is certain that the 



Cardinal Wolsey at Boulogne. 


taste Henry had been encouraged to take of power over the church, soon 
led him to be discontented with a mere snack, for his appetite grew 
fearfully by what it fed upon. Like the modest dropper-in at dinner 
time, who sits down to take “just a mouthful,” and is led on to the 
consumption of a hearty meal, Henry, who at first simply intended 
to pick a bit from the power of the pope, soon became a cormorant 
of church influence. Henry's thoughts were seriously occupied with 
the design of getting a divorce, and he therefore pretended to be in 
great alarm as to the succession to the tin-one, in consequence of 
a “ public doubt ” as to his marriage being lawful, and the Princess 
Mary being legitimate. 

There is no question that the wish was in this instance father to the 
thought, and that so far from Henry's desiring to silence all discussion 
on the point, he was the first to encourage the criticism of his wife's and 
his daughter’s position. Notwithstanding his notorious flirtation with 
Anne Boleyn—which the forward minx decidedly encouraged—he pre¬ 
tended to be looking out for an eligible parti in the event of his marriage 
with Catherine of Aragon being officially nullified. He had a picture 
VOL. II. E 










































































4G 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


sent over to him of the Duchess of Alanson, sister to Francis, and used 
to pretend that he should probably set his cap at that lady; but the 
picture was a mere blind, or probably in a very short time it experienced 
a worse fate than that of a blind, by being turned into a fire-board or 
consigned to a lumber-room. 

The love-making of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn was a mixture of 
mawkishness, childishness, hypocrisy, and scholastic pedantry, tinctured 
with an affectation of religion that was not the least disgusting feature 
of this disgraceful courtship. Henry used to write love-letters full of 
extracts from Thomas Aquinas, complaints of liead-ache, reference to 
jiious books, and sickly sentimentalism about “ mine own sweet heart 
while the good-for-nothing Nancy B. would reply by sending him pretty 
little toys and pretty little words of encouragement; She had made 
good use of her time in Wolsey’s absence, for when the cardinal came 
back, the king in answer to his own question, “ Guess who’s the gal of 
my art ? ” which his friend gave up, enthusiastically responded, Anne 
Boleyn. 

The already corpulent monarch was stupidly and spoonily love-sick 
about this “ artful puss,” as Catherine (might have) called her, and he 
used to leave scraps of paper about the palace, scribbled over with 
charades, conundrums, and anagrams to the object of his admiration.* 
Wolsey was a good deal annoyed by this avowal, but finding his oppo¬ 
sition would do no good, he changed his tack, and fell in with the 
sovereign’s fancy. Henry ordered him to consult Sir Thomas More, 
who not at all liking the job, referred him politely to St. Jerome and 
St. Augustine, saying, it was more in their way than his own, and he 
felt any interference on his part would be irregular and unprofessional. 
Wolsey next tried the bishops, who shook their heads, and said, “ You 
had better ask the pope,” to whom the king at last determined upon a 
reference. 

The pope, whom we left locked up in the castle of St. Angelo, had 
been obliged to “ come out of that ” for want of provisions, and had 
escaped in the disguise of a gardener, in which a shovel hat may have 
been of some use to him. He played liis cards so well as the one of 
spades, that with the assistance of one or two true hearts, who turned 
out trumps, he reached in safety the town of Orvieto, where he expected 
reinforcement from a French army. Long before the promised aid 
arrived, he received a card inscribed “ Dr. Knight,” and he had scarcely 
time to say, “ Doctor Knight, who is Doctor Knight ? I don't know 
any Doctor Knight,” when the King of England’s secretary, who bore 
that name, rushed into the presence of the pontiff. The doctor having 
briefly explained his object in coming, which was to get the pope's 
consent to Henry’s divorce, succeeded in extracting the requisite 

* One of these has been preserved ; it is to the following effect:—My first is the' 
article indefinite (An); my second is a very useful animal (Bull); my third is the 
abode of hospitality (In); and my -whole is the “gal of my art.” An(n) Bull-Inn 
(Anne Boleyn). 






















































































CHAP. IV.] 


HENRY WISHES FOIl A DIVORCE. 


47 


authority from his holiness, who was very unwilling, but he could not 
keep back his bull without finding himself on the horns of a worse 
dilemma. He at all events wished the matter to be kept secret for a 
short time; but a friend of Wolsey stepped forward to stipulate that an 
Italian cardinal should be sent to England with Dr. Knight, to prove 
that the document he took with him was genuine. Poor Clement, being 
afraid to refuse compliance, pointed to half a-dozen cardinals standing in 
one corner, and hurriedly observed, “ There, there, Dr. Knight, take 
any one of those, for the whole six are quite at your service.” In con¬ 
formity with this permission, Cardinal Campeggio was selected to visit 
England, and he carried with him in his pocket a decree, rendering 
final any judgment that he and Wolsey might agree upon. 

On the arrival of Campeggio a public entry into London was pro¬ 
posed ; but he excused himself on the score of gout, which had laid him 
by the heels, or rather seized him by the great toe, and prevented 
him from coming into the metropolis on the footing that he might have 
desired. After spending a few days with his leg in a sling, he was 
introduced to the king, whom he greatly irritated by advising that the 
business of the divorce should not be proceeded with. Ilenry began 
declaring that he had been deceived, and that the pope was an old 
humbug, which caused the gouty leg of the legate to tremble in its 
shoe ; and, taking the bull from his pocket, he showed that the pontiff 
meant business, and had given full authority for transacting it. 

Henry’s desire for a divorce got soon rumoured about the city, and 
caused so much dissatisfaction that he called a meeting of the judges, 
lord mayor, common council, and others, at which it was announced that 
his majesty would attend to give explanations, and enter into a justifi 
cation of his conduct. Pie made an elaborate speech of the most artful 
and hypocritical kind, in which he asserted that his religious scruples 
alone made him agitate the question of a divorce, and that if his mar¬ 
riage was valid, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to finish 
his life in the society of the old lady, who had been for many years the 
partner of his existence. It is notorious that he had made up his mind 
to desert Catherine for Anne Boleyn; and his speech is therefore a 
disgusting specimen of low cunning, rendered doubly odious by the 
religious cant with which it was accompanied. 

The unhappy queen, when visited by Wolsey and Campeggio, ex¬ 
claimed at once, “ I know what you have come about.” She said she 
thought it hard to have her marriage doubted after nearly twenty years ; 
and spoke pathetically of those early days when she was in the habit of 
going out a-Maying with her royal husband. “Ah, madam ! ” replied 
Wolsey, “ if we could have May all the year round, it would be pleasant 
enough ; but the spring of the year, as well as the spring-time of exist¬ 
ence, is not perpetual.” Catherine acknowledged she was not so young 
as she had been, and the English cardinal ventured to hint, that, even in 
those Maying days, she had the advantage of Henry,—at least, if there 
can be any advantage to a lady who is her husband's senior. Finding 

e 2 




48 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


pathos of no use, she proceeded to argument, and endeavoured to show 
that Henry had almost lost his claim to a divorce by mere laches, in 
having so long neglected to apply for one. ' The two cardinals only 
shook their heads, as if they would say, “ I can’t see much in that; ” 
and she then ventured to take another ground for opposing her husband’s 
project. She complained that her father had paid for the license and 
dispensation from the pope, but that the dispensations might be dispensed 
with as valueless, if one could supersede another at the instigation of the 
great and powerful against the comparatively friendless and impotent. 
At length, losing all temper and patience, she turned to Wolsey, taxing 
him with having “ done it all; ” when the wiiy cardinal did nothing 
but bow and smile in general terms, placing his hand upon his heart, 
muttering out, “Ton honour!” “Nothing of the sort!” and giving 
other similar assurances that he had in no way instigated the conduct 
pursued by Henry. 

The preliminary meeting to which we have referred was held in the 
Hall of the Black Friars, on the 31st of May, 1529 ; and an adjournment 
till the 21st of June having taken place, Wolsey and Campeggio were at 
their posts at the appointed hour. Henry and Catherine were both in 
attendance; and the former, when his name was called, gave a terrific 
shout of “ Here !” which had a startling effect upon the whole assembly. 



Henry answering “ Here ! ” at the Trial of Queen Catherine. 

Catherine, though she might be considered upon her trial, was accom¬ 
modated with a seat on the left of the bench, and was attended by four 
friendly bishops, who had come in the amiable capacity of moral 
bottle-holders to this injured woman When her name was called she 










































CHAP. IV.] 


TRIAL OF CATHERINE. 


49 


refused to answer, or to say a word; but the dignity of the queen soon 
gave way to the volubility of the woman, and her tongue started off into 
a gallop of the most touching eloquence. She commenced in the old 
style of appeal, by throwing herself at the king’s feet, presuming perhaps 
that if he had a tender point it might be upon his toes, and she should 
thus make sure of touching it. She then implored his compassion, as a 
woman and a stranger, concluding with a happy alliterative effect by 
declaring herself “ a friendless female foreigner.” 

At the conclusion of a very powerful speech she rose slowly, and when 
it was expected she would return to her seat, she marched deliberately 
out of the hall, to the great amazement of the friendly quartette of 
bishops by whom she had been accompanied. Henry was a little 
staggered by what had occurred ; but he nevertheless made a reply, 
which was partly inaudible from the flurry of the king himself, and the 
consternation into which the court had been thrown by the queen’s 
very telling speech, and highly dramatic exit. He was understood to 
say, that he had a very high respect for the distinguished lady who had 
just addressed them ; that she was a very good wife ; that he had in fact 
no fault to find; but that really his scruples as to the lawfulness of his 
marriage had made him very uncomfortable. He remarked that his 
conscience was so exceedingly delicate that it could not bear the slightest 
shock; and here indeed he seems to have spoken the truth, for his 
conscience appears to have died altogether within a very short time of 
the occurrence we have mentioned. 

Catherine’s departure from the court turned out to be final, for 
nothing could induce her to enter it again ; and, being pronounced con¬ 
tumacious, the proceedings were carried on in her absence. The two 
cardinals, out of regard to her majesty’s interests, requested Dr. Taylor 
—an aged junior in the back rows—to hold a brief for the defendant, 
and examine the witnesses: a proposition at which the learned gentleman 
jumped, for he had previously been occupying his own mind and the 
official ink in sketching the scene before him on the desk, or handing- 
down his name to posterity by cutting it out on the bench with a pocket 
penknife. Dr. Taylor, if he had practised little before, had quite enough 
to do on the occasion that, brought him into notice, for Lord Herbert, 
in his “Life and Reign of Henry VIII.,” gives a list of thirty-seven 
witnesses for the plaintiff, all of whom our venerable junior had the 
task of cross-examining. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of 
this achievement, when it is stated that several of the witnesses were 
ladies, and that the evidence of the first of them—namely, Mary, 
Countess of Essex—is summed up in the report as having amounted to 
“little,” though conveyed in “general terms.” 

There is something truly overwhelming in the idea which this slight 
summary conveys ; for it is impossible that the imagination can set any 
limits to the “little ” a lady can contrive to say when she avails herself 
of “ general terms ” to give it utterance. Cardinal Campeggio evinced 
a decided reluctance to bring the matter to a decision, though Henry’s 


50 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


case was undoubtedly well supported by evidence ; and old Taylor being, 
professionally speaking, a young band, was able to do little for his 
absent client. The king at length grew angry at Campeggio’s delay, 
and instructed counsel to move for judgment, which was accordingly 
done on the 23rd of July in a somewhat peremptory manner. The 
Italian cardinal refused the motion, and intimated that he would not be 
bullied by any man, “ be he king or any other potentate.” He then 
went on to say, that “ he was an old man, sick, decayed, and daily 
looking for death:” which certainly gave no reason for delay; and a 
whisper to that effect went no doubt round the bar, and w r as caught up 
by Henry’s counsel, who “humbly submitted ” that “if the court 
expected to be soon defunct, there must be the stronger reason for 
fixing an early day for its decision.” 

Cardinal Campeggio got up somewhat angrily, and intimated that the 
cause must be made a “ remanet; ” that in fact it must stand over until 
next term, as he was not disposed to continue his sittings. “ Is your 
lordship aware,” asked Sampson,* K.C., “ that you will throw us over 



the long vacation ; for we are now only in July, and the next term begins 
in Octobei. The cardinal, who was half-way towards the robing room, 


The King’s leading counsel was Richard Sampson, with whom was John Bell.—. 
Lord Herbert’s Life of Henry VIII., page 205. 












































































































































































CHAP. IV.J 


WOLSEY FALLS INTO DISGRACE. 


51 


turned sharply round to observe that “ the court was virtually up,” and 
that “ he really wished gentlemen of tlie bar would observe more regu¬ 
larity in their proceedings.” Sampson, K.C., had nevertheless got as 
far as “ Will your lordship allow us,” in another attempt to be heard, 
when Campeggio, growling out furiously, “ I can hear nothing now, 
Mr. Sampson,” retired angrily to his private apartment. The court 
never met again, and Campeggio left England a few days afterwards, 
having first taken leave of the king, who kept his temper, and behaved 
very decently. He even gave a few presents to the refractory cardinal; 
but as the latter lay at Dover, previous to embarkation, his bed-room 
door was burst open, his trunks were rummaged, and probably all his 
presents were taken away again. 

Wolsey, who had been associated in the hearing of the great cause, 
Henry versus Catherine, or the Queen at the suit of the King, fell into 
instant disgrace for the part he had taken, or rather for the part he 
had omitted to take, upon this momentous occasion. Miss Anne Boleyn, 
who had calculated on his keeping Campeggio up to the mark in pro¬ 
nouncing for the divorce, was especially angry with Wolsey for his 
apathy. Even the courtiers got up a joke upon the supineness of the 
English cardinal by calling him the supine in(h)w;w, while Campeggio 
was compared to the gerund in do, by reason of his active duplicity, 
through which he was declared to have regularly done the English 
sovereign. Many of the nobility attempted to excite the avarice of 
Henry by hinting to him that Wolsey’s overthrow would be a good 
speculation, if only for the sake of obtaining the wealth he had managed 
to accumulate; and from this moment the cardinal stood in the pre¬ 
carious position of a turkey that is only crammed to await the favourable 
opportunity for sacrifice. 

Soon after the trial of his cause, in which he thought proper U 
assume that he was entitled to a verdict, Henry set off on a tour, 
accompanied by Miss Anne Boleyn, who, in spite of Humes panegyric 
on her “virtue and modesty,” appears to have been what is commonly 
called a very pretty character. Wolsey was not invited to be of the 
party, but he rode after the court, for he was one of those hangers-on 
that-are not to be shaken off very easily. He came up with the king 
at Grafton, in Northamptonshire, and was very kindly received, but 
the next morning he was told distinctly that he was not wanted in the 
royal suite , and that he might go back to London; after which he 
never saw his master’s face again.* Henry being anxious to ruin 
his late favourite selon les regies , took the very decisive method 
of going to law with him. Two bills were filed against the cardinal 
in the King’s Bench; but Wolsey, nevertheless, proceeded to the 
Court of Chancery to take his seat, just as if nothing had hap¬ 
pened. None of the servants of the court paid him any respect; and 
it is probable that even the mace-bearer, the ushers, and other 
officers omitted the customary ceremonies of preceding him with the 


* Cavendish. 


52 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


mace, and crying out, ‘"Pray silence” upon liis entrance. On his 
expressing his readiness to take motions, he was responded to by one 
general motion towards the door, in which the whole bar joined. Being 
thus left quite alone, he amused himself by giving judgment in some 
old suit, which had lasted so long that the parties were all dead, and 
he consoled himself by saying that this accounted for the fact of nobody 
appearing on either side. 

The king, hearing of the cardinal’s proceedings, gave orders that he 
should be forbidden the court altogether, and when he went to take his 
seat as usual, he found the doors closed against him. When he got 
home to York Place, where he resided, he was told that two gentlemen 
were waiting to see him, and on going up stairs, the Dukes of Suffolk 
and Norfolk requested to have a few words with him. They told him 
that the king intended to come and live at York Place, so that Wolsey 
must “ turn out,” to which he made no objection; but when they 
insolently and tauntingly demanded the Great Seal, he declared he 
would not trust it in their possession without a written authority. 
“ How do I know what you are going to do with it?” cried the cardinal, 
holding it firmly in his grasp, and returning it to the seal-skin case 
in which he was in the habit of keeping it. The two dukes having 
exhausted their vocabulary of abuse, retired for that day, but came 
back the next morning with an order, signed by the king, for the 
delivery of the Great Seal, which Wolsey gave up to them, together 



Wolsey surrendering the Great Seal. 
































































































































































CHAP. IV.J 


WOLSEY RETIRES TO ESHER. 


53 


with an inventory of the furniture and fixtures of the magnificent abode 
he was about to vacate in favour of his sovereign. The catalogue 
exhibited a long list of luxurious appointments, and, commencing with 
“ a splendid set of curtains of cloth of gold,”* went on with—a ditto—a 
ditto—and a ditto, down to the end of the three first pages. The 
neatness and variety of his table-covers cannot be conceived, and his 
magnificent side-board of gold and silver plate was in those days 
unparalleled. He had got also a thousand pieces of fine Holland; 
but as the chief use of Holland is, we believe, to make blinds, we 
must regard his purchase of this material in so large a quantity, as 
one of those blind bargains which are sometimes the result of excessive 
opulence. Having made over all those articles to the king, Wolsey 
left his sumptuous palace, and jumping into a barge, desired the 
bargemen to drop him down with the tide towards Putney. The 
river was crowded with boats to see him shove off, and he was assailed 
with the most savage yells from the populace. As the bargeman gave 
Wolsey his hand and pulled him on board, the poor cardinal stumbled 
over a block of Walls End, when an inhuman shout of “ That's right, 
haul him over the coals,” arose from one unfeeling brute, and was 
echoed by countless multitudes. 

On reaching Putney, Wolsey gave the word to “ pull her in shore,” 
when he disembarked, with his fool and one or two others who had agreed 
to share his exile. They had not gone very far when they heard a cry of 
“Ho ! ho ! hilly hilly ho !” and looking back, they perceived Sir John 
Norris coming full pelt after them. The cardinal was mounted On a 
mule—hired probably at Putney, or picked off the common—and 
though he endeavoured to put the animal along by giving her first her 
own head, and then the head of a thick stick, the rise of a hill 
brought Wolsey to a dead stand-still. Here he was easily overtaken by 
Sir John Norris, who came, as it turned out, with a present of a ring 
from the king’s own finger, and a “ comfortable message.” The abject 
cardinal went into the most humiliating ecstasies, and actually grovelled 
in the very mud, to show his humble sense of the kindness and con¬ 
descension of his sovereign. Thinking that Sir John Norris possibly 
expected something for his trouble in bringing the grateful tidings, 
Wolsey shook his head mournfully, saying, “ I have nothing left except 
the clothes on my back—but here, take this”—and he tore from his 
neck an old piece of jewellery. “ As for my sovereign,” he cried, “ I 
have nothing worthy of his acceptance;” when suddenly his eyes lighted 
upon his faithful fool, who had been such a thorough fool as to follow 
a fallen master. “Ha!” exclaimed Wolsey, “I will send to his 
majesty my jester, who is worth a thousand pounds to anybody who 
lias never heard his jokes before; but as I am familiar with the entire 
collection, 1 have no further use for him.” The faithful fool was 
exceedingly reluctant to go, and it took six stout yeomen f to drag him 

* Herbert’s Life of Henry the Eighth, and Hume’s History of England. 

f Lord Herbert, 293. 


54 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


away—a fact which, as he was full of wit, proves the humour of the 
period to have been dreadfully ponderous. Some of the jests of our 
own time are heavy enough, but we doubt whether it would require 
half-a-dozen porters to carry a professed wag of the present day— 
including the burden of his entire stock-in-trade—into the presence of 
royalty. It is not impossible that the obstinate resistance of the fool 
to a transfer from the service of a disgraced subject to that of a powerful 
king, may have been intended as a sample of his style of joking; but 
we can only say that if this was a specimen of his wit, the value set 
upon him by his old master was rather exorbitant. 

Wolsey now lodged at Esher, where his spirits soon fell—if we may 
be allowed an engineering phrase—to a very dumpy level. Continual 
sighing had fearfully reduced his size, and he fretted so much that a 
sort of fret-work of tears seemed to be always hanging to his eye-lashes. 
His face became wrinkled and pale, as if constant crying had not only 
intersected his countenance with little channels, but had likewise washed 
out all its colour. It is not unlikely that he sometimes regretted having 
parted with his fool, whose dry humour might have mitigated the 
moisture or subdued the soaking which naturally resulted from the 
emptying of so many cups of sorrow over the dismal drooping and 
dripping cardinal. Nothing seemed to rouse him from his despondency, 
and the people about him could never succeed in stirring him up to a 
fiL<f even temporary gaiety. After dinner they would sometimes ask 
him to partake of a bowl of sack ; but at the mere mention of the word 
sack he would burst into tears, and sob out, that the sack he had 
already received had been the cause of all his wretchedness. Upon 
this he would leave the dinner-table, and wander forth to enjoy his 
solitary whine in the wood, among the thickly planted solitudes in the 
neighbourhood of Esher. Sometimes he would sit pining for hours 
under a favourite pine, or would go and indulge in a weeping match 
with one of the most lachrymose he could find of weeping willows. All 
this crying brought on a crisis at last, and Wolsey had so damped all 
his vital energies by the incessant showers of tears he let fall, that he 
fell into a slow fever. 

The king now seemed to take some compassion upon his former 
friend, and sent down a medical man to see the prostrate cardinal; 
though we are inclined to attribute this anxiety for his health to a desire 
to keep him alive until the process was complete for depriving him of 
all his property. At all events a Parliament was suddenly summoned, 
and a bill of impeachment promptly prepared against the fallen and 
feeble Wolsey. 

There were no less than four-and-forty articles in this document, 
which contained, among a variety of other ridiculous accusations, a 
charge of having, when ill with a fever, “ come whispering daily in the 
king’s ear, and blowing upon his most noble grace with breath infective 
and perilous.” This would, indeed, have been convicting him out of his 
own mouth; but though the Lords passed the bill, it was thrown out in 


CHAP. IV.] THE CARDINAL HOPES TO BE RECALLED. 55 

the Commons, through a speech of Thomas Cromwell, who had been 
secretary to the unfortunate cardinal. 

Wolsey had always felt that when he did fall, he should fall not only 
as Shakespeare said, “like Lucifer,” but like an entire box of lucifers, 
“never to rise again.” Directly the cardinal learned that the hill had 
been defeated, his appetite returned, his cheeks resumed their colour, 
the furrows began to fill out, for grief had been at sad work with its 
plough all over his countenance. He had still a good deal of property 
left, but the king began tearing it away by handfuls at a time, until 
Wolsey had nothing left but the bishoprics of York and Winchester. 
Even these were a good deal impoverished by Henry, who made a series 
of snatches at the revenues, and divided the amount among Viscount 
Rochford, the father of Anne Boleyn—who used to say, “ I am sure 
papa would like that,” whenever there was a good thing to be had—the 
Duke of Norfolk, and a few other lay cormorants. Wolsey was at 
length completely beggared, by treatment that was of such an im¬ 
poverishing nature as really to beggar description. He had nothing 
left him, but a free pardon, a little plate—including two table-spoons, 
which his enemies said were more than his desert,—a small van of 
furniture, comprising, among other articles, an arm-chair, in which he 
was tauntingly told he might set himself down comfortably for life, and 
a little cash for current expenses. He was allowed also to move nearer 
town, and giving up his lodgings at Esher he took an apartment at 
Richmond, wdiere he was not permitted to remain very long, for Anne 
and her party—including several knights of the Star and Garter—per¬ 
suaded Henry to order the cardinal off to his own archbishopric. 

The fallen prelate thought this forced journey so very hard that he 
tried to soften it by easy stages, and he travelled at the slowest possible 
pace, in the hope of being sent for back again. At every inn he 
entered for refreshment on the road he always left a request in the bar, 
that if any one should ask for a gentleman of the name of Wolsey, the 
inquirer should be shown straight up, without the delay of an instant 
Not a knock came to the door of his bed-room but he expected it was a 
messenger from the king; and when he found, in many cases, it was 
“ only the boots,” his disappointment would vent itself in terms of great 
bitterness. Adopting the customary mode of showing grief in those 
superstitious days, he took to wearing shirts made of horse-hair next his 
skin, but donkey s-hair would certainly have been more appropriate. 
He had, however, become so accustomed to hard rubs, that a little extra 
scarification was scarcely perceptible. On his arrival at York, he 
endeavoured to make himself neighbourly with the people about him, 
and became a sort of gentleman farmer, expressing the utmost interest 
in rural affairs. He made himself an universal favourite, and was 
the lion of every evening party within twelve miles of his residence. 
He was, however, scarcely a figure for these reunions, in his horse-hair 
shirt; but he probably concealed the penitential part of his costume by 
wearing a camel’s-hair waistcoat immediately over it. 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


*/ /■» 
ob 


The clergy were always getting up little fetes, of which he was the 
hero; and he was invited to the ceremony of installation in his 
cathedral, which he promised to go through, on condition of the thing 
being done as quietly as possible. It was understood that there should 
be “ no fuss,” but several of the nobility and gentry sent contributions 
of cold meat and wine, forming themselves in fact into a provisional 
committee, so that the affair partook rather of the character of a pic-nic 
than of a pageant. Three days before it was to take place Wolsey 
was sitting at dinner, when there came a knock at the door, and it was 
announced that the Earl of Northumberland—his friend and pupil— 
was waiting in the court-yard. “ Let him come up and do as we are 
doing,” exclaimed the cardinal. “ Dear me, I wish he had been a little 
earlier; but he is just in pudding-time at any rate.” As Northumberland 
entered the room Wolsey seized him by the hand, entreating him to sit 
down and enjoy a social snack—or, in other words, go snacks in the humble 
dinner. Northumberland seemed much affected, when Wolsey, con¬ 
tinuing his meal, observed, “Well, you will not make yourself at home, 
and I can’t make you out, so I may as well finish my dinner.” At length 
Northumberland, with a tottering foot, a trembling hand, a quivering 
Mr, a faltering tongue, and a tearful eye, approached his friend Wolsey, 
and threw himself with a heavy heart—adding at least a pound to his 
weight — upon the old man’s bosom. Wolsey had scarcely time to 
exclaim, “ Hold up ! ” when the Earl, mournfully tapping the cardinal 
on the shoulder, murmured, in a voice completely macadamised with sobs, 
“ My Lord—(oh, oh, oh !)—I arrest you—(here his voice became gut¬ 
tural from a perfect gutter of tears)—for high treason.” Poor Wolsey 
remained rooted to the spot, but it was soon necessary to transplant him, 
and he was speedily removed in custody. His old weakness again came 
over him, for he began to leak again at both eyes, as if he carried the 
veritable New r River Head under the hat of a cardinal. He of course 
made himself ill, and indeed he was. frequently warned that if he con¬ 
tinued much longer in this liquid state, he would liquidate the debt of 
nature altogether The warning was verified very speedily, for on 
reaching Leicester Abbey, when the monks came to the door with a 
candle to light him to bed, he observed to the abbot, “ Father, I am 
come to lay my bones among you.” He died on the 29th of November, 
1530, in the sixtieth year of his age, and w T as buried in Leicester 
Abbey. 

News of his death was at once dispatched to Henry, who was having 
a little archery practice at Hampton Court on the arrival of the mes¬ 
senger. The king continued his sport for some time, until the straw 
man, upon whom he was trying his skill, had become thoroughly trussed 
with arrows, when his majesty turned round with an abrupt “ Now 
then, what is it,” to the bearer of the sad intelligence. At the tale of 
Wolsey s death Henry pretended to be much affected, but he soon 
recovered his spirits sufficiently to inquire whether a sum of £1500 had 
not been left by the cardinal. The king expressed a desire to administer 


CHAP. IV.] 


DEATH OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. 


to his lamented friend’s effects, hut when the discovery was made, that 
instead of having £1500 to leave, Wolsey had just borrowed and spent 
that amount, his royal master thought it as well to have nothing to do 
with the business. Poor Wolsey had been the unfortunate goose who 
might have continued laying golden eggs for a considerable time had not 
Henry cut him prematurely up for the sake of immediate profit. 

We cannot part with Wolsey until we have dropped a few inky tears 
to his memory. We have already seen that his talents were con¬ 
siderable, but according to one of his biographers * he had a most elastic 
mind, or in other words he could “ pull out ” amazingly when occasion 
required. 

Some time before Wolsey’s death a new ministry had been appointed, 
in which the family and friends of Anne Boleyn got very snug berths; 
but though in those days “ any fool ” could have a seat in the cabinet, it 
was necessary to have a chancellor of good abilities. The woolsack was 
literally in the market for a few days, until Henry thrust it on to the 
shoulders of Sir Thomas More, who would have declined the profitable 
burden, and who w r as somewhat averse to the sack of wool, because he 
felt that much of the material was obtained by fleecing the suitors. 
Pie, however, was persuaded to accept the dignity, or rather to undertake 
the burden, and he was even heard to say—by a gentleman who wishes 
to remain incog .—that he wished there were porters’ knots for moral 
responsibilities as well as for actual weights, since it was exceedingly 
difficult to preserve one’s uprightness beneath a load of dignity. 

Among the persons recently introduced to court was Thomas Cranmer, 
who happened to have met Dr. Gardiner, the king’s secretary, and Dr. 
Fox, at a private dinner table. As the party sat over their wine, the 
divorce of Henry was brought upon the tapis, and Cranmer made the 
sagacious observation, that the proper way would be to have it looked 
into. Gardiner and Fox exchanged glances, as much as to say “ Shrewd 
fellow that; ” and they both agreed that he was a wonderful man for his 
age—which it will be remembered was the sixteenth century. They 
endeavoured to bring him out, and upon a free circulation of the bottle, 
Cranmer gave it as his opinion that there was “ only one course to 
pursue,” that “the thing lay in a nutshell,” that “it was as clear as 
A, B, C;” a series of sentiments which, though more knowing than 
conclusive, made a deep impression on Fox and Gardiner. “There’s 
a great deal in that fellow,” said Fox after Cranmer had gone home, 
and indeed there was a good deal in him no doubt, for scarcely any thing 
had been got out of him. The two doctors hastened to the king to 
inform him of the enormous catch they had got in Cranmer, whose 
winks, innuendos, and occasional ejaculations of “ I see it all;” “Plain 
as a pike-staff,” &c., &c., had made such a deep impression upon the 
two doctors. Henry was as much taken with their description of 
Cranmer as they had been with the original, and the king exclaimed 


* Galt, page 199, Boguc’s European Library. 


58 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK V. 


in a perfect rhapsody, “That man has got the right sow by the ear;”* an 
expression which we are sufficiently pig-headed not to appreciate. It was 
arranged that Cranmer should be asked to dine at the palace ; and after 
a good deal of desultory conversation, in which “ Exactly,” “ I see it,” 
“ No question ijbout it,” were Cranmer’s running fire of ad captandum 
remarks, Henry got so puzzled that he requested the gentleman to put 
his opinions in writing at his earliest convenience. 

The individual who had thus received instructions to act as pamphleteer 
in ordinary to the king, was sprung from an ancient family in Notting¬ 
hamshire, but he was destined for higher things than dragging out the 
thread of his existence in Notts, as we shall soon see when we proceed 
to unravel his history. His early education had been somewhat 
neglected, for his father was a sportsman, who took more delight in 
going out to shoot than in teaching the young idea how to follow his 
example. Young Cranmer’s master was a severe priest, who ruled his 
pupils with a rod of iron, and thrashed them with a rod of a different 
material. He snapped many a whip over the young whipper-snappers, 
as he was in the habit of calling his youthful charges, who, at all events, 
became hardened by the salutary treatment they experienced. 

Cranmer applied himself with diligence to his studies, and in turn 
took pupils of his own at Cambridge, where he happened to meet one 
day at dinner with Fox and Gardiner, who, as we have already seen, 
introduced him to the sovereign. The pamphleteer elect to Henry VIII. 
was lodged in the house of the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne 
Boleyn, who used to lock the author up in a garret, with a pen and ink 
and something to drink, upon which he received instructions to “ fire 
away ” in support of the views of his master. Cranmer soon rattled off a 
treatise in which he smashed the pope, demolished every objection 
to Henry's divorce, and proved to the satisfaction of the king that he 
could do as he liked as to contracting a second marriage. “ Would you 
say as much to the pope himself? ” asked Henry of his literary man. 
“ Aye, that I would, as soon as look at him,” was the reply; upon which 
Cranmer was taken at his word, and sent off to Rome with old Boleyn, 
now the Earl of Wiltshire. As they entered the papal presence, 
Clement held out his toe to receive the usual homage, but the old Earl 
positively declined to perform the humiliating ceremony, and after the 
pontiff had stood upon one leg for a considerable time, he found that he 
and his visitor must meet upon an equal footing. Cranmer, though not 
allowed a public disputation with the pope, took every opportunity of 
earwigging the people about him, and got many of them to admit that 
the king’s marriage was illegal, though they would not acknowledge that 
his holiness had no power to give it validity. Though Cranmer’s pamphlet 
had proved everything, it had done nothing, and Henry beginning 
to speak of his exertions as “ all talk,” another tool was required to carry 
out the royal project. This tool came originally from a blacksmith's 


* Todd’s Life of Cranmer, Tytller’s Life of Henry the Eighth, &c., &c. 


CHAP. IV. J 


HENRY MARRIES ANNE BOLEYN. 


59 


shop in Putney, in the shape of one Thomas Cromwell, of whom it has 
since been said that he was a sharp file, who would cut right through 
a difficulty, while Cranmer was active enough in hammering away at a 
point, but his hitting the right nail upon the head was generally very 
dubious. 

The father of Cromwell did smiths’ work in general, but nothing at 
all in particular, for he had amassed a decent fortune. His son was 
sent as a clerk to a factory at Antwerp, where he kept the books ; but 
he soon abandoned accounts, in the hope of cutting a figure. He entered 
the army, and was present when Ptome was made a bed of ruins, by 
getting a complete sacking. He next entered the counting-house of a 
merchant of Venice, who dealt in Venetian blinds and Venetian carpet¬ 
ing, but young Cromwell soon threw up the one and indignantly laid 
down the other. On arriving in London, he commenced the study of 
the law, and took chambers in Inner Temple Lane, which was, even at 
that early period, the grand mart of legal ability. Wolsey, who had 
lodgings over the gate hard by,* was in the habit of meeting Cromwell, 
who eventually became what is professionally termed “ the devil ” of 
that ingenious advocate. 

On the fall of his senior, Cromwell contrived to keep just far enough 
off to prevent himself from being crushed by the weight of the unfor¬ 
tunate Cardinal, and offering his services to the king, was immediately 
retained in the great cause of Henry VIII. versus Catherine of Aragon, 
ex parte Anne Boleyn. By the advice of Cromwell the authority of 
the pope was set at defiance, and in 1532 a law was passed prohi¬ 
biting the payment to him of first-fruits; “which do not mean,” says 
Strype, “ the earliest gooseberries, to enable his holiness to play at 
gooseberry fool, but the first profits of a benefice.” 

Henry at last determined to cut the gordian knot, by forming another 
tie, and in January, 1533, he solved the question of the divorce by 
marrying Anne Boleyn. The ceremony was performed in a garret at 
Whitehall, in the presence of Norris and Heneage, who were a couple 
of grooms, and of Mrs. Savage, the train-bearer of the bride, whose 
wedding came off much in the style of those clandestine affairs, in which 
the clerk gives the lady away, and the old pew-opener acts in the 
capacity of bridesmaid. Cranmer, who had lately arrived in town for 
the season, found a vacancy in the see of Canterbury, which he con¬ 
sented to fill up, without scrupling to take the usual oaths to the pope, 
though openly avowing himself a Protestant. Clement himself not 
only ratified the election of the man he knew was committing perjury, 
but even consented to make a reduction in the fees that were usual on 
similar occasions, 

Thus did these two precious humbugs humbug each other and their 
contemporaries; but the historian will not allow them any longer to 

* These lodgings still exist as Honey and Skelton’s the hair-dressers, who have pre¬ 
served a series of interesting historical documents, among which may be seen Wolsey’s 
first brief, and other curious relics. 


60 


COMIC IIJSTOHY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


humbug posterity. Cranmer swore obedience against his conscience, 
and intending to break his oath, but intent on obtaining the dignity 
which he could purchase by perjury, and Clement took a reduced fee, 
on the principle of half a loaf being better than no bread, from a man 
who, on the slightest opposition being offered to him, might have 
snapped his fingers at the papal chair as he did in his heart—if one 
can snap one’s fingers in one’s heart—at the papal authority. Thus 
did the great champions of Protestantism on one side, and Catholicism 
on the other, agree in a disgraceful arrangement, by which one sold his 
sacred authority for a pecuniary bribe, and the other bartered his 
conscience for a temporary dignity. 

It has been said by Cranmer’s apologists, that he took his false oaths 
with a mental reservation; but if this excuse were allowed to prevail, 
the conscience would possess a salve as efficacious as that of the quack 
which was warranted to cure every disease from apoplexy to chilblains, 
and prevent the necessity of patients with delicate lungs from export¬ 
ing themselves abroad to avoid the danger of being left for home 
consumption. 

The contemplation of so much hypocrisy, in such high quarters, 
having put us so thoroughly out of patience that we are unable to pro¬ 
ceed, we break off here with the remark, that tergiversation and treachery 
have ever been common among even the highest in rank, and so we 
fear they will continue to be until — ha! ha! — the end of the 

CHAPTER 


CHAP. V.] 


CORONATION OF ANNE BOLEYN. 


6i 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 

HENRY THE EIGHTH'—(CONCLUDED.) 

tough Henry VIII. had already 
married Anne Boleyn, the little affair 
of the divorce from Catherine had 
not been quite settled, and as it was 
just possible that his two wives might 
clash, he resolved to hurry on his 
legal separation from her, whom we 
may call, by way of distinction, the 
“old original.” Cranmer, who was 
a very spaniel in his sneaking sub¬ 
servience to his royal master, was 
instantly set on to worry, as a cur 
worries a cat, the unhappy Catherine. 
A court was immediately constituted, 
under the presidentship of Cranmer, 
to decide on the legality of her mar¬ 
riage, and the lady was cited to 
appear; but she did not attend, and 
though summoned by her judges 
fifteen times, the more they kept on 
calling, the more she kept on not 
coming. Difficult as it is in general to anticipate what a judicial 
decision will be, the judgment in the case of the King ex parte Anne 
Boleyn versus Catherine of Aragon might be foreseen very easily. The 
marriage was of course pronounced illegal, and Cranmer wrote to Henry 
on the 12th of May, 1533, to say that he had just had the pleasure of 
pronouncing the “ old lady ” vere et manifests contumax. The Court 
declared she had never been married to Henry, but was the widow of 
the Prince of Wales, to whose title she must in future restrict herself 
When the news was brought to her she exclaimed indignantly, “ Not 
married to the king! marry come up, indeed ! ” and the wretchedness 
of the pun speaks volumes for the misery to which she had been 
reduced by her enemies. 

Henry, wishing to make the work complete, and aware that finis 
coronat opus , determined that a coronation should be the finishing touch 
of his recent matrimonial manoeuvreing. The ceremony was performed 
with great pomp, on the 1st of June, 1533 ; when, though the regular 
crown was used, the weak head of Anne was too feeble to bear it, and it 
was replaced by a smaller diadem, which had been purposely prepared 
as a substitute When Clement heard of what had been passing in 

VOL. II F 










































02 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK V 


England, lie sent forth a bull, expecting that Henry would be imme¬ 
diately cowed by it. The pontiff ordered the monarch to take back his 
original wife, but the latter refused to listen to any motion for returns ; 
observing, that those who are at Rome may do as Rome does, but that 
he should entirely repudiate the papal jurisdiction. A parliament which 
was held soon after, seconded the sovereign’s views, and, by way of 
paying off the pope, he was deprived of all fees, rights, and privileges 
which he had hitherto enjoyed as head of the Church of England. The 
ecclesiastical party in England had been subservient to the whim of 
Henry, and had assisted in nullifying its own supremacy over the 
state, by cutting off its own head ; so that the experiment of amputating 
one’s own nose to be revenged upon one's face was somewhat more than 
realised. 

On the 7th of September, 1533, Anne Boleyn became the mother of 
a little girl, who was named Elizabeth, and the courtiers of the day 
already offered to lay heavy bets on the future greatness of Betsy. The 
king, who had buoyed himself up with hopes of a boy, was a little angry 



Birth of the Princess Elizabeth, 

at the unfavourable issue, and he vented his ill-liumour in further 
insults towards the unfortunate Catherine. Every one who continued, 
either by design or accident, to call her queen, was thrown into prison; 
































































































































































CHAP. V.] 


'THE MAID OF KENT. 


03 


and even a slip of the tongue, occasioned by absence of mind, was 
followed by absence of body, for the luckless offender was dragged off to 
gaol, from the bosom of his family. 

Henry having lopped off Catherine as a branch of the royal tree, and 
grafted Anne Boleyn on the trunk, began to think about the successional 
crops, in the treatment of which he was assisted by a servile parliament. 
Little Mary, the daughter of Catherine, was rooted out like a worthless 
marigold, and Elizabeth was declared to be the rising flower of the royal 
family. Among the atrocities committed by parliament on account of its 
miserable subserviency to the will of the king, was the bill of attainder of 
high treason, passed against a female fanatic called the Maid of Kent, and 
some of her accomplices. This person, whose name was Elizabeth 
Barton, and who resided at Aldington in Kent, was subject to hysteri¬ 
cal fits, as well as to talking like a fool, which in those days—as 
in these—was often mistaken for a symptom of superior sagacity. Ex¬ 
tremes are said to meet, and the mental imbecility of Miss E. Barton 
was thought by many to border on an amount of wisdom, which only 
inspiration could impart, and the semi-natural got credit for the posses¬ 
sion of supernatural attributes. Some of her idiotic and incoherent 
talk having been heard by her ignorant companions, was declared by them 
to be inspired, because it was something they did not understand; and 
as knavery is always ready to turn to profit the idea that folly sets on 
foot, persons were soon found willing to take the Maid of Kent under 
their patronage for political purposes. 

Richard Maister or Masters, the vicar of the place, whom Hume 
calls “ a designing fellow ” behind his back, whatever the historian 
might have said to the reverend gentleman’s face, was the first to take 
an interest in Elizabeth Barton, and introduced her to public notice as 
a sort of mesmeric prodigy; in which capacity she brought out a bundle 
of Sybilline leaves, with the intention, probably, of making a regular 
business of telling fortunes. Anxious for the recommendation of being 
able to announce herself as “ Prophetess in Ordinary to the King,” Miss 
Barton began predicting all sorts of things with reference to Henry; 
but unfortunately she had not the tact to make his Majesty the subject 
of happy auguries. She hoped, perhaps, that if she went to work 
boldly, he would buy her off; for it has sometimes proved a good 
speculation to establish a nuisance in a respectable neighbourhood, 
which will often pay the annoyance to remove itself to some other 
locality. Miss Barton did not, however, manage so well, for instead of 
getting literally bought up, she was destined to be put down very 
speedily. Making a bold bid for royal patronage, she prophesied that 
if Henry put away Catherine he would die a violent death within seven 
months; and Elizabeth Barton thus made sure that if the king 
declined treating with her for the stoppage of her mouth, the ex-queen 
would at least make her some compliment in return for her compli 
mentary prophecy. Henry, who had no objection to her dealing out 
death either wholesale, retail, or even for exportation, to some of his 

f 2 




Cl COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK V. 

popish enemies abroad, could not allow such a liberty to be taken with 
his own name; and accordingly the fortune-teller, who professed to hold 
consultation with the stars, was brought up before the Star Chamber. 
She soon found in the president a Great Bear more terrible than the 
Ursa Major to whom she had been accustomed ; and perceiving by the 
rough manner of the assembled stars of the Star Chamber, that theirs was 
anything but the Milky Way, she was glad to own herself an impostor, 
for she saw that it would have been useless to plead not guilty, before 
judges who, according to her own conviction, were resolved on convicting 
her. She was committed to prison on her own confession; and as the 
seven months within which Henry would have become due, according to 
her prediction of his death, had expired, it was to be hoped that he, at 
least, would have been satisfied without subjecting Miss Barton to 
further punishment. He however seemed to have become positively 
irritated at the falsehood of her prophecy; and because he had not 
died in the proper course, he subjected the maid and six accomplices to 
a bill of attainder of treason, in pursuance of which they were all 
executed on the 21st of April, 1534, at Tyburn. 

We will not dwell on the disgusting subject of Henry’s cruelties 
towards such excellent men as Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir 
Thomas More, both of whom fell victims to the ferocity of their royal 
master. Their conscientious refusal to recognise Henry as the head of 
the Church had excited his rage, which increased to the height of 
savageness when the pope offered to send to poor Fisher the hat of a 
cardinal. The king at first attempted to put a prohibition on the 
importation of all hats ; but anticipating that the chapeau intended for 
Fisher might be smuggled into England, Henry contented himself 
with the barbarous joke, that the hat would be useless without a head to 
wear it on. The monarch soon carried out his threat, and then turned 
his fury upon the unfqprtunate Sir Thomas More, who had retired into 
private life in the hope of escaping Henry’s tyranny. This, however, 
was impossible; for though conscience must often have whispered 
“Can’t you leave the man alone?” some evil genius kept ever and 
anon murmuring the words, “ At him again,” into the ears of the 
despot. 

Among the petty persecutions to which More was exposed, w T as the 
taking away of all writing implements from the good old man, who, 
deprived of pens and ink, took a coal as a substitute. He at length 
learned to write with a piece of Wall’s End as rapidly as he could use 
a pen, and, with a coal-scuttle for an inkstand, he never wanted the 
material to keep alive the fire of his genius. Considering how famous 
he was for the use of “ words that burn,” we do not see how he could 
have found a better instrument than a piece of coal for transcribing his 
sentiments. A pretext was soon found for taking the life of this 
excellent man, whose facetious bearing at his own execution shall not 
mislead us into unseemly levity in alluding to it. He made jokes upon 
the scaffold • but we must admit that they are of so sad and melancholy 


CHAP. V.j L.KATH OF CATHERINE OF ARAUOn Oft 

a description, as to be scarcely considered inappropriate to his very 
serious position. So much has been said of the wit of More, that we 
may perhaps be excused for hazarding a word or two concerning it. Judg¬ 
ing by some of the bon mots that have been preserved, they seem to us 
hardly worth the expense of tlieir keep; for as horses are said to have 
eaten off their own heads, so the witticisms of More appear in many 
instances to have consumed all their own point, or, at all events, the 
rust of ages lias a good deal dimmed their brilliancy. His wife had but 
little respect for his waggery, and would sometimes ask him “ how he 
could play the fool in a close, filthy prison ? ” and she evidently thought 
it was carrying a joke a little too far, when she found her husband 
would not “ drop it ” even in the Tower. His allusion to his being 
obliged to write with coals instead of pens, which caused him to say 
that “ he was but a wreck of his former self, and had better be scuttled 
at once,” seems to us equally deficient in point and dignity. He was 
executed on the 6 th of July, 1535, after a quantity of badinage with the 
headsman, which makes us regret, for the sake of More, that any 
reporters were allowed to be present. 

Henry had now come to open war with the Church of Rome, and, 
under the advice of Cromwell, he determined to make a profit as well 
as a pleasure of the recent rupture. While the pope let loose his bulls 
upon the king, the latter turned out his bull-dogs, in the shape of emis¬ 
saries, empowered to pillage the rich monasteries in England. Cromwell 
acted as whipper-in to this cruel sport, and hounded on the servile 
dogs at his command, in pursuit of those monastic herds, which 
had been luxuriating in the rich pastures the church had hitherto 
afforded. It is true that many impositions on the public were discovered 
by the emissaries of Henry; but one fault does not justify another, and 
the frauds of the monks afforded no excuse for the robbery committed 
by the monarch. We may feel indignant at the showman who exhibits 
on his delusive canvas “ more, much more,” than his caravan can hold, 
but we have no right to appropriate to ourselves the whole of his stock 
because he has been guilty of trickery. Henry did not pocket the whole 
of the proceeds thus unscrupulously obtained, but gave a few slices 
to the church, by creating half-a-dozen new bishoprics and establishing 
a professorship or two in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 
The greedy cry of “ Give us a bit,” which was raised by his clerical tools, 
could not be altogether disregarded, and he threw them a few crumbs 
of the good things he had seized, more with the hope of stopping the 
mouths than satisfying the appetites of the hungry claimants. 

Poor Catherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton on the 8th of January, 
1536, after writing a letter to the king, which it is said extracted one 
tear from the sovereign’s heart—a circumstance which must have raised 
hopes at the time, that the process of extracting blood from a stone 
might not be found impossible. 

The year 1536 was marked by a voyage of discovery under the 
patronage of the king, for the purpose of sending some emigrants on a 


06 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK V. 



wild-goose chase to the north-west coast of America. Thirty of the 
adventurers were gentlemen from the Temple and Chancery Lane, who, 
thinking anything better than nothing, had probably dashed their wigs 
to the ground, and thrown themselves on the mercy of that motion of 
course which the sea was certain to supply them with. It is said, 
though we know not with how much truth, that the learned wanderers 
being short of provisions, made each other their prey—a result to be 
expected when clients were not accessible. It is added that none of 
the party returned but a learned gentleman of the name of Ruts, who 
was so changed that his father and mother did not know him until he 
pointed to a wart which had not been washed away by the water. 

Henry continued his hostility to the pope, absurdly declaring that he 
would not be bullied, and in defiance of the papal see caused Anne 


Henry is determined not to be bullied. 


Boleyn, who is said to have exulted over the death of Catherine, to drain 
the cup of sorrow, or rather to lap it up; for she one day found Jane 

































































CHAP. V.] 


ANNE BOLEYN SENT TO THE TOWER. 


67 


Seymour, a maid of honour, sitting on the knee of Henry. It was in 
vain that the monarch and his new favourite endeavoured to laugh the 
matter off as a mere lapsus, for Anne declared that the king must have 
begun to nurse a new passion 



Henry making love to Jane Seymour. 


As they who are convicted of a fault themselves are anxious to pick 
holes in the conduct of others, Henry having been proved to see more 
in Seymour than became him as a married man, commenced harbouring 
suspicions against Anne Boleyn. On May-day, 1536, there had been a 
royal party at Greenwich—in fact, a regular fair—when suddenly, in the 
midst of the sports, Henry started up exceedingly indignant at some¬ 
thing he had witnessed. The queen did the same, and her husband 
pretended that he had seen her either winking at one Norris, a groom, 
or clown to the ring, in which the jousts were going forward, or making 
signals to Mark Smeaton, a musician in the orchestra. Several persons 
were seized at once, and sent to the Tower, including poor Smeaton, 
the member of the band who was accused of acting in concert with men 
of higher note, to whom he was charged with playing second fiddle. 

Poor Anne w r as taken to the Tower, where a number of scandalous 
old women were sent about her to talk her into admissions against 
herself, and to talk her out of anything that they could manage to 
extract from her simplicity. She wrote what may justly be called “ a 











































































































































68 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK V. 


very pretty letter” to the king, dated the Cth of May, 1536 ; but if 
any answer was received it must have come from Echo, who is the 
general respondent to all communications which receive no attention 
from the parties to whom they are directed. On the 12th of the same 
month Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton were tried and executed, 
all denying their guilt but the musician, who changed his key note a 
little before he died, and modulated off from a fortissimo declaration of 
innocence to a most pianissimo confession. There is every reason to 
believe that this composition of Smeaton was a piece of thorough base, 
which is only to be accounted for on the score of treachery. 

On the 15th of May, a building as trumpery as the charge against 
her having been knocked together in the Tower, Anne Boleyn was 
brought up for trial before a court of twenty-six barons, one of whom was 
her own father, while her uncle the Duke of Norfolk sat as president 
One would have imagined that a jury comprising two relatives would 
have given a positive advantage to Anne ; but her uncle being a rogue, 
and her father a fool, the former was too venal, and the latter too timid, 
to be of any use to her. She pleaded her own cause with such earnest 
ness, that every one who heard how she had acquitted herself, thought 
that her judges must have acquitted her. They, however, found her 
guilty, to the intense bewilderment of the Lord Mayor, who had heard 
her defence, and could only go about exclaiming, “ Well, I never! did 
you ever? ” for the remainder of his existence. 

It would seem that there was something in the mere prospect of the 
axe, which imparted its sharpness to the intellects of those upon whose 
heads the instrument was on the point of falling. We have already 
alluded to the mots of More when he was positively moribund, and the 
quips of the queen became very numerous and sparkling as the prospect 
of the scaffold opened out to her. She made a sad joke upon the little 
span of her own neck—in reference, no doubt, to the small span of 
human existence—and paid a compliment to foreign talent by requesting 
that she might have the benefit of the services of that sharp blade that 
nad just come from Calais—alluding to the recent arrival of the French 
executioner. 

Henry was on a hunting party in Epping Forest, and was break 
fasting on Epping sausages, when the execution took place, the 
announcement of which he had ordered should be made to him by the 
firing of a gun as a distant signal. During the dejeuner Henry kept 
continually exclaiming “ hush,” and entreating “ silence,” with all the 
energy of an usher in a court of law, until a loud bang boomed over the 
breakfast-table. Henry instantly started up, exclaiming, “ Ha, ha ! ’tis 
done! ” and ordering the dogs to be let slip while his breakfast-cup was 
still at his lip, he resumed his sport with even more than his wonted 
gaiety. On the very next day, he was married to Jane Seymour, there 
having been a very short lapse of time since she was discovered on the 
lap of Henry. 

A parliament having been speedily assembled, that servile body 










































































CHAF. V.j 


BIIITII OF EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES 


69 


passed every act that Henry desired, and began by cancelling, in one 
batch, the entire issue of his former marriages. The princesses Mary 
and Elizabeth were declared illegitimate, while the condemnation of 
Anne Boleyn was legalised by statute; a measure which was a little 
tardy, considering that she had already lost her head in pursuance, or 
rather in anticipation of the confirmation of her sentence. 

The destruction of monasteries was now carried on with a most 
brutal rapacity, and a mixture of barbarism and barbarity that disgusted 
a great portion of the community. Not satisfied with robbing the 
inmates of the monasteries, Henry’s myrmidons destroyed the buildings 
themselves with the most wanton violence, and it was remarked that they 
were never contented with emptying a cellar of all its wine, but must 
always remain to take shots at the bottles. This unprovoked and 
tasteless taste for mere mischief roused the discontent of the people in 
many places, and the Lincolnshire fens assumed the offensive with one 
Mackrel, an odd fish, as the leader of the insurgents. This Mackrel 
soon got himself into a sad pickle, for he was executed at a very early 
period of the insurrectionary movement. 

On the 12tli of October, 1537, Her Majesty Queen Seymour gave 
birth to a son, an event which made Henry as happy as a king, or at 
least as happy as such a king, with such a conscience as Henry carried 
about with him, could possibly make himself. He dandled the royal 



Delight of Henry at having a Son and Heir. 





























































































































































TO 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


infant in his arms with all a parent’s pride, and sang snatches of 
nursery ballads in the ear of the baby. The child was called Edward, 
which Henry fondly translated into Teddy Peddy; and three little 
coronets—the size of first caps—were instantly made for the Prince 
of Wales, the Duke of Cornwall, and the Earl of Chester, for such was 
the tria juncta in uno formed by the birth of the illustrious little stranger. 
The queen died in twelve days after giving birth to an heir; but this 
circumstance did not seem to affect the spirits of Henry, who perhaps 
felt that there was one more wife out of the way, without the trouble 
and expense of getting rid of her. 

The arbitrary monarch now experienced a good deal of trouble from 
one Pole, whom the tyrant made several attempts to bring to the scaffold. 
This Pole was remarkable for standing erect, and for his firmness, after 
once taking his ground, in keeping his position. Pie was the son of 
Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Countess of Salisbury, for the first Pole 
was a land of leaping Pole, with a strong tendency to raise not only 
himself, but all those that belonged to him. Reginald, for such was the 
name of the Pole that had stirred up the rage of Henry, had received 
from the pope a cardinal’s hat, with the assurance that such a Pole ought 
not to be bare, but deserved the most honourable covering. Being himself 
resident abroad, he was as much out of the English tyrant’s power as if 
he had been the old original North Pole, of whom we have all heard; 
but his brothers and relatives at home were seized upon, and either 
executed or burnt like so much firewood. Parliament aided the des¬ 
potism of the king, by passing a suicidal act, declaring that a royal 
proclamation should have the force of law; a resolution equivalent to an 
act of self-destruction; for if the king could do everything by himself, there 
was, of course, no occasion for Lords and Commons to help him in the 
task of government. 

Henry having become disembarrassed of no less than three wives, 
began to think so little of the encumbrance of matrimony, that he con¬ 
templated a fourth engagement. It was indeed natural enough that he 
should be fearless of that which might make bolder men afraid, for he 
had given evidence of a facility in making an escape, and he consequently 
risked little by braving danger. He advertised, as it were, for a wife, in 
all the markets of European royalty, and he continued popping a series 
of questions; but his — to revive a mot (we cannot call it a bon mot ) of 
the period—was of all pops the most unpopular. “ Nobody will have 
me, by Jingo,” he would sometimes mutter to himself; and at length 
the wily Cromwell proposed to act as matrimonial agent to his Majesty. 

The Duchess Dowager of Milan was treated with for her hand, but 
she wrote back to say that if she had a couple of heads, she might 
listen to Henry’s proposal, for he would certainly cut off one, and it 
would be awkward not having another head to fall back upon. He next 
sent an offer to the Duchess of Guise, saying that wedlock, coming t<? 
him in such a Guise, would be the height of happiness; but this lady 
politely excused herself, on the ground of a “ previous engagement.” 


CHAP V.] 


ANNE OF CLEVES 


71 


Somewhat hurt by these repeated rebuffs, he requested Francis the king 
of France to “ trot out ” his two sisters for Henry to take his choice; 
hut Frank said frankly that he would have nothing to do with the 
humiliating business. We have it on the authority of a letter among 
Cromwell’s correspondence, that Henry was rather taken with Madame 
de Montreuil, a French lady, who having come from France to 
Scotland in the suite of Magdalen, first queen of James V. of Scotland, 
was now on her way back again. Henry appears to have gone to Dover 
for the purpose of meeting her on the pier or the parade ; but he must 
have found her passe as he surveyed her through his glass, for nothing 
came of their meeting. The lady lingered in England to give him 
every chance, but Henry could only shake his head, observing “ No! by 
Jove it won’t do; ” and Madame de Montreuil, pitying his want of 
taste, was compelled to return to her own country. 

At length Cromwell came running one morning to Henry, exclaiming, 
“ I think I ve found something to suit your majesty at last,” and placed 
in the king’s hand the card of “ Anne, second daughter of John Duke 
of Cleves, one of the princes of the Germanic Confederacy.” Henry 
was not positively averse to the match, but was wavering, when 
Cromwell produced a lovely portrait as that of the candidate for the 
hand of the English sovereign. The king examined the picture with 
the eye of a connoisseur , and being pleased with the sample, ordered 
the lot to he sent over to him with as little delay as possible. The 
picture was by Holbein, who had utterly concealed the plain fact, and 
bestowed upon the German princess such handsome treatment, that he 
had imparted the lustre of the brilliant to an object which was as 
inferior to the copy, as German paste is worthless by the side of the 
diamond. Henry hastened, on her arrival in England, to compare the 
original with the picture; and having disguised himself, sent forward 
Sir Anthony Brown to say that a gentleman was coming on to see her, 
with a new year’s present. Poor Brown was fearfully taken aback at 
seeing a lady so thoroughly laide as Anne of Cleves, but gave no opinion 
to his royal master. Henry went tripping into the apartment with all 
the ardour of a youthful lover; but the first glance was enough, and 
he shrunk back, muttering to himself, that the princess instead of 
looking like the picture of Holbein, reminded him rather of the picture 
of misery. He nevertheless summoned up all his resolution to give her 
a kiss ; hut it was clear to all who witnessed the scene, that Henry 
repented a bargain in which he found himself mixed up with such a 
decidedly ugly customer. After a few minutes passed in small-talk—the 
smallness of which limited it to twenty words—Henry went away in deep 
dudgeon, but he made up his mind to the marriage, lest he might be 
involved with any of the German powers in an action for a breach of 
promise. 

The evening before the nuptials were solemnised, Henry sat with 
Cromwell, bewailing—probably over some nocturnal grog—the “ alarm¬ 
ing sacrifice,” that had become unavoidable. The statesman, who had 


72 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK V. 

recommended the match, tried hard to soften down some of the most 
repulsive features of Anne; but Henry coarsely described her as “ a great 
Flanders mare,” and Holbein as a “ humbug ” for having so grossly 
flattered such a coarse clumsy animal. “ By my troth,” he exclaimed— 
for his indignation rose as the liquor in liis glass became lower—“you 
got me into this scrape and you must get me out of it. I shall expect 
you to find some means of abating for me this frightful nuisance.” 

Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the head of the popish party in the 
church, was, of course, an opponent of Cromwell, and took advantage of 
the recent matrimonial mistake, to damage him still further in the 
opinion of his royal master. Gardiner flattered himself that the train 
had been already laid, and that the awfully bad match which Cromwell 
himself had provided, would certainly hasten the explosion that there 
was good reason to anticipate. The wily Bishop of Winchester intro¬ 
duced Catherine Howard, the lovely niece of his friend the Duke of 
Norfolk, to the king, who was instantly struck by her beauty, and said 
warmly, “ Ha ! the man who has discovered this charming Kate knows 
how to cater for his sovereign.”* 

Cromwell’s doom was now sealed, and the Duke of Norfolk, on the 
10th of June, 1540, had the luxury of taking into custody his political 
antagonist. A charge of having one day pulled out a dagger, and 
declared he would stick to the cause of the Reformation, even against 
the king, was speedily got up, and, by the 28th of July, he was disposed 
of, at Tower Hill, in the customary manner. While in prison, he wrote 
a pitiful letter to Henry, with the word “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” 
reiterated thrice as a P.S.; the meanness and tautology of which evinced 
a poverty in the spirit as well as in the letter. 

The king had now determined to marry Catherine Howard, but the 
old difficulty—another wife living—stood in the way of the desired 
arrangement. Having consulted his attorney, it was proposed to search 
for some previous marriage contract in which Anne of Cleves had been 
concerned; and as everybody is engaged, on an average, at least half-a- 
dozen times before being married once, there would have appeared little 
difficulty in accomplishing Henry’s wishes. 

The excessive ugliness of Anne of Cleves, however, placed great 
obstacles in the way, for she had clearly been a drug in the matrimonial 
market, and neither by hook nor by crook could an old offer for her be 
fished up until something of the kind from the young Prince of Lor¬ 
raine—entered into before he was old enough to know better—was 
happily hit upon. A commission was at once issued, the matter tried, 
and of course decided in Henry’s favour. By -way of strengthening the 
king’s case, it was urged by his learned counsel that he had married 
against his will, and therefore ought to be released from his contract. 
The Court, however, held that the establishment of such a principle 
would be almost equivalent to the passing of a general divorce act for 
half the couples in Christendom, and on that point at least the rule for 

* Strype—who certainly deserves a hundred stripes for recording such an atrocity. 


CHAP. V ] EXECUTION OF THE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY. 73 

a new trial of Henry’s luck was refused accordingly. His suit for a 
nullification of his contract with Anne of Cleves succeeded on the other 
point, and both parties were equally gratified by the result which set 
them both at liberty. The lady felt she had much rather lose her 
husband's hand than her own head, and Henry began to think he might 
be wearing out the axe upon his wives before he had half done with it, 
and if he could find any other means for severing the marriage tie he 
much preferred doing so. He offered to make her his sister, with three 
thousand a year, an arrangement with which she expressed herself 
perfectly satisfied. Both parties were permitted to enter into wedlock 
again, if they pleased, and the king of course availed himself of the 
option with his accustomed celerity. The Bill was brought into Par¬ 
liament on the 12th of July, and the 8th of August found Catherine 
Howard already publicly acknowledged as the fifth Mrs. Henry Tudor. 

It had now become the boast of Henry that he held the balance with 
an even hand between the Catholics and the Pteformers; but his impar¬ 
tiality was shown in a manner most inconvenient to both of them. He 
used to deal out what he called equal justice to both, by submitting a 
few on each side of the question to equal cruelty. Pie would forward 
three Catholics at a time to Smithfield, to be hanged as traitors, and by 
the same hurdle he would send three Lutherans to be burned as 
heretics. 

As we are unwilling to turn our history into a Newgate Calendar, for 
the sake of recording the atrocities of a sanguinary king, we shall, in 
our account of the remainder of this odious reign, preserve the heads, 
and avoid the executions. The murder of the Countess of Salisbury, an 
old woman upwards of seventy, and the mother of Cardinal Pole, stands 
out perhaps from some other sanguinary deeds by its peculiar atrocity 
The venerable lady, at the last moment, defied the executioner to come 
on, and a combat of the fiercest character took place upon the scaffold. 

Henry, who had frequently tried to inoculate his nephew, James Y. of 
Scotland, with his own predatory propensities, became at length angry 
that the latter declined turning thief in the name of religion, and 
plundering the church under the pretext of simply reforming it. A 
conference had been agreed upon between the English and Scotch kings; 
but the latter, at the instigation of Cardinal Beaton, whose olfactory 
nerves had detected a rat, broke his appointment with his imperious 
uncle. This ungentlemanly proceeding gave such offence to the English 
tyrant, that he threatened, with an awful oath, to let the weight of old 
Henry be felt in Scotland ; and the expression that So-and-So purposes 
“ playing old Harry,” no doubt took its rise from the incident to which 
we have alluded. 

The Duke of Norfolk was sent, as a low fellow of the period hath it, 
“ to take the shine out of that Jem,” who was completely defeated at 
Solway Moss, through his own troops turning their backs—not upon 
him, as it is said by some, but upon the enemy. James was so over¬ 
whelmed with shame and despair, that he drew his helmet over his 


n 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


eyes, assumed a stoop—a sure sign that he was stupified—and never 
raised his head again, hut fell a victim to that very vulgar malady, a 
low fever. He left his kingdom to his daughter, then only eight days 
old, who came to the throne on the ninth; hut as she was not a nine 
days’ wonder, she evinced no miraculous aptitude for the task of 
government. 

Henry had in the meantime been made very uncomfortable by 
rumours that his wife, familiarly known as Miss Kate Howard, had not 
been acting properly. When the king heard the news, he was deeply 
affected, for he was one of those persons who make up, in feeling for 
themselves, for their deficiency of feeling with regard to others. He 
sat down and had a good crocodilian cry, which irrigated his hands to 
such an extent that he was compelled to wring them to get them dry 
again. Cranmer and Norfolk were appointed to examine into the truth 
of the charges against the queen, who, when her guilt was proved 
beyond doubt, made a virtue of necessity—the only virtue of which she 
could boast—by boldly confessing it. 

This unfortunate young woman had been promised a pardon on 
condition of her revealing the extent of her transgression ; but when she 
had admitted not only a great deal she had done, but had thrown into the 
bargain a great deal she had never done at all, Henry, regardless of his 
pledge, thought that the best way to get rid of an annoyance w r as to 
break the neck of it. Catherine Howard was accordingly beheaded at 
the Tower, on the 15th of February, 1542, and finding her confession 
had done her no good, she retracted the greater part of it. “ It was not 
to be supposed,” says Mullins, “ that a person who had shown himself 
so double as Henry, could long remain single,” and he accordingly threw 
himself once more upon the matrimonial market. There he was of 
course no longer at a premium, but he was pretty soon at Parr; and it is 
a strange fact that he w T ould have commanded a better price had it been 
certain that he could be had without the coupon, which had distinguished 
the settling days of two of the wives of this shocking bad sovereign. 
Catherine Parr w T as a corpulent old lady, fortified by at least forty 
summers, but she readily listened to the proposals of Henry. Henry 
entered her at once on his share or chere list, and in allusion to her 
bulk, placed opposite to her name the words “commands a very heavy 
figure.” She was the widow of Neville, Lord Latimer; but, thought 
Henry, “What care I, if she has even killed her man?—it will not be 
the first time that I shall have killed my woman.” 

The English king courted her at once, and made much of her; but to 
have made more of her than there really was, w r ould have been rather diffi¬ 
cult. He married her on the 10th of July, 1543, and it is a curious fact 
that she outlived him, which we can only attribute to the lady partaking 
the longevity of her namesake old Parr, for there must have been a vigorous 
adhesion to life in any one who could marry and survive the wife-extermi¬ 
nating tyrant. For some time she humoured Henry, but having a touch 
of Lutherism, she began meddling with matters of Church and State, 


CHAP. V.] 


CATHERINE PARR OFFENDS THE KING 


75 


which embroiled her with a bishop or two, who ran and told the king 
what she had been impudent enough to talk about. “ Marry come up !” 
roared Henry, in allusion to his having elevated Catherine Parr by 
marrying her; “ so you are a doctor, are you, Kate ? ” But having had 



Henry wooing Catherine Parr. 


a hint that her mixing in politics was not agreeable, she only replied, 
meekly, “No, no, your Kate is no caitiff.” This speech had the effect 
of diverting Henry’s wrath, almost as much as it will divert posterity 
by its delightful quaintness. Gardiner, who had justified his name— 
allowing of course for the difference of spelling—by sowing the seeds 
of dissension between the king and queen, had arranged with the 
sovereign that Pier Majesty was to be seized next morning by forty 
guards, headed by Chancellor Wriothesley. This person was not a little 
astonished at finding himself called “ an arrant knave, a foole, and a 
beastlie foole,* ” by the king, when he came to execute his mission 


* Lord Herbert. 


















































































































76 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[book V. 


He was, in fact, dismissed with an entire earful of fleas, of which 
Henry had always an abundance on hand for unwelcome visitors. 

Henry had now become, literally, the greatest monarch that ever sat 
upon the throne, for he had increased awfully in size, and become 
irritable at the same time, so that the task of getting round him was, 
in every sense, extremely difficult. Had there been a prize monarch 
show, open to the whole world, he must have carried off the palm, for 
he was too fat to lie down, lest no power should be able to get him up 
again. It is true he had been born to greatness, but he also had 
greatness thrust upon him—some say by over-feeding—to such an 
extent that he was obliged to be wheeled about, on account of his very 
unwieldiness. It might have been supposed that Henry would have 
begun to soften under all these circumstances; but he exhibited no 
tendency to melt, for he continued his cruelties in burning those whom 
he chose to denounce as heretics. It is disgraceful to the ecclesiastical 
character of the age, that the church party that happened to be in power 
sanctioned the cruelties practised towards the party that happened to be 
out, and it was said, at the time, that the fires of Smithfield were always 
being stirred by some high clerical dignitary, who might be considered 
the “ holy poker ” of the period. 

The prospect of a speedy vacancy on the throne, created a rush of 
candidates, who commenced literally cutting each others’ throats—a 
desperate game, in which the Howards and Hertfords made themselves 
very conspicuous. Young Howard, Earl of Surrey, used to sneer at 
Hertford, who had been recently ennobled, as a “ new man,” and 
Hertford would retort unfeelingly upon Howard’s father, the Duke of 
Norfolk, by saying “ it was better to be a new man than an old 
sinner.” The Norfolk family got the worst of it, for Norfolk and 
Surrey were taken to the Tower on the 12th of December, 1546, on 
the frivolous charge of having quartered with their own arms the arms 
of Edward the Confessor. Had they gone so far as to use these arms 
upon a seal, it ought not to have sealed their doom, nor stamped 
them as traitors; but the frivolousness of the charge marks the tyrannical 
character of the period. Commissioners were sent to their country 
seat at Kuming Hall, to ransack the drawers, pillage the plate-chest, 
and send the proceeds to the king; but the people intrusted with the 
job, either found or pretended to find scarcely anything. They wrote 
to the king, telling him that the jewels were all either sold or in pawn ; 
but as the tickets never came to hand, it is possible that the searchers 
were practising a sort of duplicate rascality. They forwarded to the 
king a box of beads and buttons ; but though every bead was glass. 
Henry does not appear to have seen through it. Surrey was tried at 
Guildhall for having quartered the royal arms with his own, and on his 
defence he observed, “ By my troth, mine enemies will not allow me 
any quarter whatever.” He was found guilty, of course, and beheaded 
on the 19th of January, 1547, and his father’s execution had been set 
down in the peremptory paper for the 28th of the same month, when 


CHAD. V.] 


DEATH OF HENRY VIII. 


7* 

i 0 

the proceedings were suddenly stayed just before execution, by the 
death of Henry. 

The tyrant, who had been getting physically as well as morally worse 
and worse, clung to life with such desperate tenacity, that is a sure 
sign of there being good reason for dreading death in those among 
whom, after a certain age, such a cowardly fear is manifest. He would 
often impiously threaten that “he would outlive all the younger people 
about him yet;” and though his time was evidently not far off, he would 
not bear to be told of his true condition. Instead of repenting of his 
past life, he devoted the wretched remnant of his existence to doing all 
the mischief he could, and venting his malice to the fullest extent 
that his now failing strength would admit of. Nobody dared muster 
resolution to tell the unhappy old brute that he must very speedily die, 
until Sir Anthony Denny, a knight who shared our friend Drummond’s * 
aversion to humbug of any description, boldly told old Harry that he 
was on the point of visiting his redoubtable namesake. 

Finding all chance of escape cut off, he began confessing his sins; 
but it was rather too late, for, had his repentance been sincere, the 
catalogue of His crimes was far too voluminous to allow of his getting 
through one half of it before his dissolution. He had been in the habit 
of adjourning that court of conscience existing in his as well as in every 
man’s breast, and he always postponed it sine die; but when the time 
to die actually came, or the die was really cast, it was rather late to 
move for a new trial. Henry died on the 29th of January, 1547, in the 
fifty-sixth year of his age, the thirty-eighth of his reign, and at least 
the forty-first of his selfishness, baseness, and brutality. 

He had been married six times, having divorced two of his wives, 
beheaded two more, and left one a widow. This leaves one more—Jane 
Seymour—still unaccounted for ; and indeed her death was the most 
wonderful of all, because it was natural. He left behind him three 
children : but he did not care a pins head, or even—to name an article 
of smaller importance to him—a wife’s head, for any one of them. Such 
a very bad man was sure to be a very bad father, and he had declared 
two of his children illegitimate, for it was the delight of this monster to 
depreciate his own offspring in the eyes of the world as much as possible 
His religious reforms, however wholesome in their results, were brutal 
in their execution and base in their origin. His insincerity may be 
gathered from the fact that he appointed masses to be said for his own 
soul, though he had burnt many persons for popery; and he seemed to 
think that, by taking up two creeds at once on his death-bed, he could 
make up for the utter irreligion of his past existence. He is said to 
have contributed to the cause of enlightenment, and so perhaps he did with 
all his blackness, as the coal contributes to the gas; and never was a 
bit of Wall’s End half so hard, or a tenth part so black, as the heart of 

* “ Drummond is so averse to humbug of any description.”— Vide Tijou. 

VOL. II. w 


78 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


this despicable sovereign. He never had a friend; but he was surrounded 
by sycophants, whom, one after the other, he atrociously sacrificed. 

Cranmer being a man of superior mind, exercised an influence over 
him, and was sent for to his death-bed, when he pressed the prelate’s 
hand ; but whether the pressure arose from cramp or conscience, rheum¬ 
atism or remorse, penitence or “ pins and needles,” must be considered a 
question to which we will not hazard an answer. We regret that we have 
been unable to adhere to the excellent motto, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, 
in this case ; but Henry was such a decided malum in se, that mischief 
was bred in the bone, and the nil nisi bonum becomes impossible. 

Learning certainly advanced in this reign, and Henry himself affected 
authorship ; but every literary man, from the highest flyer in the realms 
of fancy to the humblest historian of last night’s fire or yesterday’s 
police, will be honestly ashamed of his royal fellow-craftsman. 

Several colleges and schools were founded in this reign, among the 
principal of which were Christ Church at Oxford, Trinity at Cambridge, 
and St. Paul’s in London. Here it was that the lowly Lily, of Lily’s 
gr^tnmar notoriety, first raised his humble head as the head master of the 
school; and, though there is something lack-a-daisy-cal in Lily’s style, his 
grammar was at one time the first round of the ladder by which every 
lad climbed the heights of classical instruction. 

It may be interesting to the gastronomic reader to be informed that 
salads and turnips first came into use, with other roots, towards which 
the people had shown until then a rooted antipathy. They swallowed 
spinach without any gammon, and even the carrot, that had formerly 
stuck in their throat as if they feared it would injure the carotid artery, 
was consumed with alacrity; and those who had disdained the most 
delicious of green food, by courageously exclaiming “ Come, let us try it,” 
are supposed by some—though we disclaim the monstrous idea—to have 
given its name to the lettuce. The cultivation of hops came as if 
with a hop, skip, and jump across from Flanders, and the trade in wool 
w 7 as brought, under the fostering patronage of Wolsey, to a state of some 
prosperity. 

With the exception of the burning of monasteries and the murder of 
his wives, there was little to render the reign of Henry remarkable, 
beyond, perhaps, the invention of beef-eaters. The word beef-eater is 
known to be a corruption of buffetier , and indeed there was corruption, 
to a certain extent, in everything connected with this detestable tyrant. 
It is said they were called buffetiers from attending at the buffets, or 
side-board of plate, but it is far more likely that they got the pame 
from the buffeting to which every servant of the royal ruffian must 
have been occasionally liable. The neck was so often in danger, that 
any menial of the malignant monarch might be expected to ruff it in 
the best way he could, and hence the enormous ruffs, which are con¬ 
spicuous to this day, round the chins of the beef-eaters. The looseness 
of their habits may be considered characteristic of the court to which 


CHAP. V.] PTNS INVENTED IN HENRY VIII.’s REIGN. 79 

these functionaries were attached, though it has been said by sotne 
authorities that the beef-eaters were puffed and padded out to an 
enormous extent, in order that the monster Henry might not appear 
conspicuous. 

The reign of Henry was also remarkable for the invention of pins, to 
which somebody had given his own head with intense earnestness. The 
sharpness of the English had not yet reached so fine a point as to have 
led to the discovery of the needle, which was doubtless suggested by the 
pin, to some one who had an eye for improvement. The thimble is a 
still later introduction, the merit of which is considerable; for though at 
the present day every sempstress has the thimble at her finger ends, 
there was a time when no one had thought of this very simple but 
necessary appendage to the ladies’ work-table. If the reign of Henry 
had never been devoted to anything more objectionable than the 
discovery of pins and needles we should have had little reason to com¬ 
plain, for a few pricks of conscience, no matter whence they emanated, 
would have done him good; but the scissors for cutting the thread of 
existence formed the instruments chiefly in use during this cruel and 
most disastrous reign. 



Shilling of Henry VIII. 
























80 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK V. 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH. 


EDWARD THE SIXTH 



n enormous weight was 
taken off the whole country 
when the late lump of ob 
esity was removed from 
the throne; but, shameful 
to relate, the first use the 
nation made of the power 
of breathing freely was to 
give a few puffs to the 
departed tyrant. The 
chancellor Wriothesley an¬ 
nounced the king’s death 
to the House of Lords in 
tears, and there is said to 
have been much weeping; 
but there are tears of joy 
as well as of sorrow, and 
the former must have been 
the quality of the brine in 
which the memory of 
Henry was preserved for a few days by his people. The lamentations, 
whether sincere or hypocritical, were very soon exchanged for joy at the 
accession of Edward the Sixth, who was only in his tenth year when he 
woke one morning and found the crown of England over his ordinary 
nightcap. To rub his eyes and ask “ What’s this ? ” were the work of an 
instant, when, taking off the bauble, drawing aside his curtains, and 
holding the article up to the light, he at once recognised the royal diadem. 

Young Edward was what we should call a little forward chit had he 
been a common lad, but being a king -we must at once accept him as an 
infant prodigy. He had learnt several tongues from Mr. Cheke, anc 
had been a pupil of Sir Anthony Cook; hut many of such cooks wouid 
have spoiled the best “ broth of a boy,” for Sir Anthony was a pedant, 
“ with five learned daughters ”•—being equivalent to a couple of pair of 
blue stockings, and an odd one over. 

Henry, in his reluctance to leave to his son what he could no longer 
hold himself, had fettered the monarchy as much as he could by his 
will, which was, however, soon treated with the contempt it merited. 
He had appointed sixteen executors and twelve councillors, but all to 
no purpose; for all power was placed in the hands of the young king’s 
uucle, Hertford, who was created Duke of Somerset. The vaulting 






























































CHAP. VI.] 


THE PROTECTOR SOMERSET. 


8] 


ambition of this man, who turned Somersets over every obstacle that 
fell in his way, rendered his new title very appropriate. He was 
invested with the office of Protector, and he very soon set to work, but, 
still true to his name of Somerset, he went head over heels into a war 
with Scotland. The object of this proceeding was to demand the hand 
of Mary, Queen of Scots, for the child Edward; but the idea of a person 
coming to make love with a fleet of sixty sail, and an army of 18,000 
men, was a little trop fort to suit the taste of the Caledonians. They 
placed a ban upon the marriage, which was equivalent to forbidding the 
banns, and suggested, that if the young gentleman wanted to come 
courting, he had better come by himself to pay his addresses. After a 
little negotiation, which ended in nothing, a battle ensued, which is 
famous as the Battle of Pinkey, where the combatants pinked each 
other off most cruelly with the points of their swords ; and it is added 
by the inveterate Strype—who deserves two thousand stripes, at least, for 
this offence—that “ on this field, which was within half a mile of Mus¬ 
selburgh, the soldiers on both sides strained every muscle ” The 



English Archer of the Period, from such a rare old print. 
















































82 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


rBOOK V 

L 


English arcliers sent their arrows from their bows with destructive 
effect; and looking, as they did, like so many Cupids in a valentine, 
it must be confessed that that mode of warfare was, at least, appropriate 
to a war undertaken in the cause of Hymen. The Scotch were sadly 
defeated, but they still refused to give up their little queen to the young 
fellow who sought her hand through his subjects’ arms, and she 
was accordingly sent to finish her education in France ; where, though 
only six years of age, she was betrothed to the Dauphin. 

Somerset, instead of following up his successes, made the best of his 
way home ; for he heard that his own brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, 
the Lord High Admiral, who had been created also Baron Seymour of 
Sedley, was making himself a great deal too agreeable to the royal ladies 
in England. Old Kitty Parr, Henry’s widow, was so much taken with 
Tom Seymour’s attentions, that she fell at once into his arms, and 
became his wife; but poor Parr soon fell to a discount in the eyes of 
her husband, who had become enamoured of the young Princess Eliza¬ 
beth. The unhappy old Parr swallowed many a bitter pill at this time, 
until death put an end to her annoyances. Admiral Seymour was now 
free to pay his addresses to Elizabeth, but it would seem that he was 
not more free than welcome, for even during the life of her mother-in 
law, that young lady had afforded him every encouragement. 

In order to stop his flirtations, which were now becoming serious, he 
w r as clapped in the Tower, but his enemies were considerate enough to 
send a bishop to him to preach patience, and as Ely was selected, who 
prosed exceedingly, the preaching was accompanied by a practical 
lesson in patience, with which it is to be hoped that Seymour was 
sufficiently edified. He was accused of treason, and at a council the 
boy Edward, who had no doubt been crammed for the occasion, deli 
vered an elaborate judgment, which his parasites puffed as extempo¬ 
raneous. He regretted being obliged to sacrifice his uncle Seymour to 
the common w T eal—a w T eal that has brought woe to many, and to which 
the wheel of fortune bears, except in its orthography, a wondrous 
similarity. Seymour was executed on Wednesday, the 20th of March, 
1549, and the last use he made of his head before it was struck off was 
to shake it, and observe that “ ’pon his honour, if he had been guilty of 
any treason against the king it was quite unintentional.” 

The country was about this time agitated by one of those fits of 
general discontent w 7 hich prevail every now and then among the lower 
orders of society. As usual there was a good deal of reason mixed 
with a large amount of unreasonableness in their complaints, and the 
customary feeling of “ not knowing exactly what they really w 7 anted,” 
became alarmingly general. Some cried for this, another for that, and 
another for t’other, while an almost universal shout for the privilege of 
ruling themselves was accompanied by a clear manifestation of an utter 
want of self-control on the part of the people. Their self-styled 
friends were of course busy in goading them on to acts of violence, and 
the protector himself, instead of repressing tumult first, and pardoning 


CHAP. VI.] 


ARREST AND PARDON OF SOMERSET. 


83 


it afterwards, pursued the opposite course, which only had the effect of 
clearing off old scores, that new might be run up with fresh alacrity. 

One of the most prominent ringleaders in the revolt was a tanner of 
Norfolk, named Robert Ket, of whom it was vulgarly said, that such a 
bob was as good as two tanners; “ and hence perhaps,” says my Lord 
Herbert, or some one else, “ two tanners or sixpences came to be called 
in the vernacular equivalent to one bob, or a shilling.” Ket had been 
cruelly provoked in having the mob set upon one of his inclosures by a 
gentleman who had suffered from the destruction of one of his own 
hedges; hut the tanner retaliated by administering such a leathering to 
his assailants as they would have remembered to this hour had any one 
of them been left alive to indulge in such reminiscences. It was found 
necessary to send over to Scotland for Warwick to go and settle Ket, 
which was very speedily done, for finding himself unable to keep upon 
his legs, he laid down his arms, after having run for his life, and crept 
into a barn among some corn to avoid an immediate thrashing. He 
was taken to Norwich, and lodged in the castle, whence he wrote to a 
friend, saying, “ I shall be hanging out for the present at the above 
address; ” and his words were soon verified, for he was hanged out on 
the top of the building a few days afterwards. 

Poor Somerset was now about to take the most formidable somerset 
in the whole of his career, namely, a fall from the extreme of power to 
the depths of disgrace, chiefly by the rivalry of Warwick- The pro¬ 
tector found it high time to think about protecting himself, and tried to 
muster his friends, to many of whom he wrote; but verbal answers of 
“ Not at home,” “ Mr. So and So will send,” and similar evasive 
replies, convinced poor Somerset that there was very little hope for him. 
In the meantime Warwick and party were meeting daily at Ely Place, 
Holborn, where they were settling in that very legal neighbourhood the 
draft of a set of charges against the protector, who was accused among 
other things of having pulled down a church in the Strand to build 
Somerset House, and having spent in bricks and mortar the money 
intrusted him to keep up the wooden walls of old England, by paying 
the sailors and soldiers their respective salaries A bill of pains and 
penalties was issued from Ely Place, which is to this day famous for 
its art in making out bills, and twenty-eight charges were brought 
against Somerset, who thought it better to confess every one of them, 
on a promise that he should be leniently dealt with. This leniency 
consisted in taking away almost everything he possessed, which caused 
him to remonstrate on the heaviness of the fine ; but on being told 
snappishly he might consider himself lucky in having got off with his 
life, he shrunk back in an attitude of the utmost humility. He was set 
at liberty and pardoned, but we shall have him at mischief and in 
trouble again before the end of this chapter. 

Though a mere child was on the throne, the atrocities committed at 
Smithfield, in the burning of what were called heretics, went on as 
briskly as ever, the fires being stirred by Cranmer and Ridley, in the 




81 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK V 


most savage manner. Mary, the king's eldest sister, gave considerable 
trouble, by insisting on tlie celebration of mass in her own household; 
and, though told by the council she musn’t, the truly feminine reply 
“ that she should see if she shouldn’t,” and “ that she would though— 
they’d see if she wouldn’t,” was all that she condescended to say in 
answer to the requisition. 

Somerset since his liberation had been still hanging about the court, 
and had apparently become reconciled to Warwick, whose eldest son. 
Lord Lisle, had been married to Lady Ann, one of the daughters of the 
ex-protector. Nevertheless, on Friday the 16th of October, 1551, 
Somerset found himself once more in the “ lock-up,” on a charge of 
treason. He was accused of an intention to run about London crying 
out “ Liberty ! Liberty ! ” and if that had not succeeded he was to have 
gone to the Isle of Wight to try on the same game in that direction. 
If that had not succeeded there is no knowing what he would have done; 
but at all events, orders were sent to the Tower to set a watch upon the 
great seal, because Somerset wanted to run away with it. If he had 
made off with the seal he might, perhaps, have taken the watch also ; 
but this did not occur to the council. His trial took place at West¬ 
minster, on the 1st of December, 1551, at the sittings after Michaelmas 
term, when he denied everything, and was found guilty of just enough 
to get a judgment—with speedy execution—against him. His politeness 
was quite marvellous, for he thanked the lords who had tried him, and 
he threw as much grace as he could into the bow he was compelled to 
make on submitting his head to the axe of the executioner. “ This,” 
says Fox, on the authority of a nobleman who was present, “came off 
on Friday, the 22nd of January, 1552,” and it is a curious fact, that of 
every execution that occurred in his reign the boy king had preserved 
the heads in his private journal. 

Warwick, who had got himself promoted to the dukedom of Northum¬ 
berland, seemed desirous of making government a business for the 
benefit of himself and family. He took the motto of “ anything for 
peace and quiet,” though he had blamed his predecessor, Somerset, for 
having done the same thing, and he bought off the hostility of France 
and Scotland by selling Boulogne regularly up, placing a carpet on the 
light-house, dividing the upper and lower town into lots, declaring that 
he wanted money down on the nail, and to hit the right one on the 
head he must resort to the hammer. He made excellent marriages for 
his children, and allied his son, Guilford Dudley, with the royal family 
of France, by wedding him to Lady Jane Grey, a daughter of a son of 
the old original Mary Tudor of France, to whose descendants the English 
crown would fall in the event of a failure of a more direct succession. 

The young king Edward, who had not yet passed through the 
ordinary routine of infantine complaints, now took the measles—or 
rather the measles took him—and he had scarcely recovered from this 
complaint, when the small-pox placed him under indentures which 
seemed much too strong to be cancelled within any reasonable period. 


CHAP. VI.] 


ILLNESS OF EDWARD VI 


85 


He was serving his time to this malady, when another latent illness 
that had hitherto been playing at hide and seek, set up a cry of 
“ whoop,” and his youthful majesty was in for the whooping-cough. 
Northumberland, taking advantage of the king’s weak state, advised 
him not to leave the crown to his big and bigoted sister Mary. 
“ True,” said Edward, “ but how about poor little Bet ?” “ Why she,” 

replied the protector, “is very little better.” With such weak sophistry 
as this, he persuaded the poor invalid king to draw up a settlement of 
the crown on Lady Jane Grey, and the judges, with all the law officers, 
were summoned to approve the document. Sir Edward Montague, the 
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, with Sir Thomas Bromley, one of 
his puisnes , came accompanied by the attorney and solicitor-generals, 
to say that the deed was illegal, and that they, one and all, would have 
nothing to do with it Upon this, Northumberland rushed into the 



The Duke of Northumberland offers to fight any one of tiiem. 



















































































































































86 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


room, called Montague a traitor,* banged the door, threatened to bang 
the judges, and offered to fight in his shirt-sleeves any one of them. 
He declared that if they could not see the deed in its proper light, he 
would pretty soon beat it into them, and he was squaring up to the 
poor puisne with an evident intention for mischief, when the judges 
offered to take the papers home and reconsider them. 

The next day, they were again sent for, when, finding Northumberland 
as pugilistic as ever, and hand in glove with the king, the chief justice 
consented to the deed; and the puisne , on being approached by Northum¬ 
berland in an attitude of menace, was glad to stammer out, “ I am of 
the same opinion,”as rapidly as he could give the words their utterance. 
The judges were promised that the deeds should be ratified by parlia¬ 
ment, and that they should be pardoned, if they had done wrong; for 
otherwise, from the fists of Northumberland to the hands of the 
legislature, might have been analogous to getting out of the frying-pan 
into the fire. 

All this row in the palace of an invalid produced the effect that might 
have been expected, for the poor boy died a day or two afterwards. A 
pugilistic encounter between a duke and a judge, was somewhat too much 
of a stimulant for a child in Edward’s weak state, and his physicians 
having given him up, he was turned over to the treatment of a female 
quack, who finished him. She did the business on the 6th of July, 
1533, when he sunk under a complication of evils, among which his 
medical attendant was undoubtedly the greatest. He had lived fifteen 
years, eight months, and twenty-two days, having been upon the throne 
six years and a half; affording a curious instance of a reign, in which the 
part of the sovereign was so insignificant that it might just as well have 
been omitted. 

This little fellow has been greatly eulogised for his talents, as shown 
in his journal; but on looking at this juvenile production we regret to say 
that we could not go the length of our old friend the evening paper, in 
stating that it is “a very remarkable production.” He mentions certain 
dinners and suppers with evident gusto, and alludes to the return of the 
sweating sickness, but misses the obvious point, that he hopes it will not 
prove so perverse as to begin sweating sovereigns. Some of the his¬ 
torians of his reign allege that he had studied the business of the mint; 
but it may fairly be replied, that merely looking at the process of coining 
does not make a sovereign. He is said to have known all the harbours 
in Scotland, England, and France, with the amount of water they were 
capable of containing—and though this may prove the depth of his 
research, it is no particular mark of his ability. He took notes of 
everything he heard; but as sovereigns hear a great deal of thorough 
trash, the collection must have been rather tedious and elaborate than 
instructive or entertaining. 

If we are to judge young Edward by the laws passed in his reign, 


* 


Burnet. 


CHAP. VI.] 


CHARACTER OF EDWARD VI 


87 


there is no great deal to be said for him. Beggars were declared to be 
the slaves of those who apprehended them, and iron collars were per¬ 
mitted to be put about the throats of the latter; but this was too much 
for the pride of the stiff necked people of England, and the law was 
repealed, within two or three years of its having been enacted. 

There is no doubt that he was a most amiable little fellow, as docile 
as a lamb, if indeed his gentleness did not amount to absolute sheepish¬ 
ness. His flatterers say that he could speak five languages, and had a 
taste for music and physic, in the latter of which predilections we are 
quite unable to sympathise. We should have said he was a nice child 
but for the peculiarity to which we have just made allusion. As a quiet 
young gentleman at a preparatory school kept by ladies, Master Edward 
Tudor would have done credit no doubt to the establishment in which he 
might have been placed; but we would as soon select a sovereign from 
a seminary at once, and take him from the bread-and-butter to the 
throne, as see the spirit of the monarchy diluted in milk-and-water, and 
the sceptre dwindling down into a king’s pattern spoon 


88 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH 

MARY 

Northumberland having got the deed appointing his daughter-in-law 
the Lady Jane Grey to the throne, began to get rather nervous as to the 
effect of making known to the people such a preposterous arrangement. 
He was afraid to advertise the king’s death, and walked about the 
palace at Greenwich, biting his nails, thinking what he should do, or shut 
himself up in a small apartment, which, from the colour of its walls, was 
known as the brown study. He subsequently sent for the Lord Mayor 
of London, half-a-dozen aldermen, and a dozen citizens, to whom he 
communicated, one at a time, but always in a whisper, the decease of the 
sovereign. “Mind you don’t tell,” was the precautionary observation 
he made to each; and a will was then produced, in which the boy-king 
had appointed Lady Jane Grey his successor. The Cockneys expressed 
their readiness to swear allegiance to the lady, if it was “all right;” 
and Northumberland pledged his honour as a peer, that he would make 
it so. This happened on the 1st of July, and two days afterwards Lady 
Jane was forwarded by water to the Tower of London, some of the 
corporation, who had been gained over by her father-in-law, rowing in the 
same boat with her. After her safe arrival, the death of King Edward 
was publicly announced, and Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed amid very 
slight applause, accompanied by murmurs of the name of Mary. Poor 
Jane was sadly genee by the position into which she was thrust, for she was 
a quiet, unaspiring, lovely creature, whose only fault seems to have been 
that she read Plato in the original Greek,* which appears to us the 
very alpha and omega of absurdity. 

In the meantime, Mary, whose sanguinary disposition, and love for 
cutting off heads in her father's style, fully entitled her to the name of 
the “ chip of the old block, ’ was raising friends to resist the views of 
Northumberland. Mary, whose catholic predilections were known, 
promised those who were favourable to the Reformation, that she would 
make no change in the religion fixed by Edward; and thus, though she 
was understood to have mass celebrated at home, she silenced the scruples 
of the masses. The proclamation of Lady Jane Grey had been contrived 
at a packed meeting of the council, on the 10th of July; but it is said 
that a vintner’s lad—or more probably a boy going round with the beer 
—entered a protest—possibly through an open window—to the arrange¬ 
ment. A policeman was instantly sent after him, and he was at once 
set in the pillory, where the tops of his ears paid the penalty of a juvenile 
offence, which he would not have committed had he arrived at the years 

* Roger Ascluuu. 


CtTAP. VII.] RESIGNATION OF LADY JANE GREY £9 

of discretion. This little incident, trifling as it was, showed that there 
was a feeling abroad unfavourable to the elevation of Jane; for the pot¬ 
boy is always an authority on the subject of public measures. His 
opportunities of listening to the discussions of the people, are great; and 
though he may hear much frothy declamation, as well as witness a vast 
tendency to half-and-half principles, in the course of his experience, he 
is nevertheless capable of judging, to a considerable extent, of the feelings 
of the multitude. 

Northumberland, seeing that opinion was taking a powerful turn in 
Mary’s favour, became fearfully perplexed, and hearing that an adverse 
force was being collected, came to the resolution that “ somebody ” must 
go and oppose the enemy. Who that “ somebody ” should be, was a 
very puzzling question, for Northumberland did not like the business 
himself, and was afraid to trust any one else with a matter of so much 
consequence. At length he offered the task to Suffolk, the father of 
Lady Jane Grey ; but that young lady began to cry very bitterly at the 
idea of her poor papa, who was “ wholly unaccustomed to public fighting,’' 
being sent into battle. Whether it was an arrangement between father 
and daughter it is impossible to say; but it is well known that Suffolk 
was not over valorous, and even if he did not “cry off,” Lady Jane did 
so for him, by keeping up a constant cry until they found her father a sub¬ 
stitute. Northumberland, perceiving that Suffolk had made up his mind 
not to go, was looking about him ’ for somebody else, when a general 
interrogatory of, “ Why don’t he go himself?” seemed to suggest itself 
to the council. With a reluctance that indicated the feeling in his mind 
of “ Well, I suppose I must,” he started off with a small army, which 
experienced a cold reception in its progress, and the silence of the 
spectators giving them the air of mutes, invested with the dolefulness of 
a funeral procession the march of the troops as far as Bury. 

Northumberland had no sooner turned his back on the council than 
they turned their backs on him, by proclaiming Mary as Queen of 
England ; and on a party being sent to besiege the Tower, Lady Jane 
Grey, by the advice of her own papa, resigned all pretensions to the 
sovereign dignity. Suffolk not only evinced no disposition to defend 
his daughter’s claims, but turning his sword into a steel-pen, hastened 
to sign the decrees that were being issued in the name of Mary. 

Poor Northumberland, who was waiting for succours which never 
came, and who was accordingly being victimised by the expenses of his 
soldiers, who acted as suckers of a different kind, heard of what had 
taken place in London, and having fallen back upon Cambridge, sent for 
a herald, or town crier, with whom he bargained for the proclamation of 
Mary, at the market-place. It has been atrociously hinted, by an old 
offender, whose family we spare by the suppression of liis name, that 
Northumberland took this humiliating course in the hope that Mary 
would be molli-fied. He had scarcely finished the proceeding we have 
described, when he received a sharp letter from the council in London, 
desiring him to disband his army; but looking round, he perceived that it 


90 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK V 


had disbanded itself, for all his followers had deserted him. They had, 
in fact, gone over to the other side, with a canting recantation of their 
opinions, and a whining declaration that they never should have thought 
of taking arms against their lawful queen “ had not Northumberland 
made them do it.” The unhappy duke himself was hanging about the 
streets of Cambridge the next day, not knowing whether to give 
himself up or “run for it,” when the Earl of Arundel, coming up and 
tapping him on the shoulder, observed “ You must come along with me 
—you ’re my prisoner.” Northumberland burst into a loud bellow, fell 
upon his knees, and begged for his life; but Arundel, contemptuously 
desiring an underling to “ bring him along,” lodged the captive in the 
Tower. Poor Lady Jane, whose representations of the part of queen 
had been limited to ten days, was already locked up, and, in fact, the 
state prison was full to overflowing of her unfortunate partisans. Her 
father, the Duke of Suffolk, obtained his pardon on the 3Jst of July, 
through Mary, who, on the 3rd of August, 1553, made her triumphant 
entry into London, accompanied by her little sister, afterwards the great 
Elizabeth. On the 18th of the some month, Northumberland, his 
eldest son John, Earl of Warwick, and two or three others, were 
brought to trial at Westminster Hall, when they pleaded the general 
issue; but the chief prisoner, finding it useless to throw himself 
upon the country, threw himself on the floor, asking, in the most 
abject terms, for mercy. This prostration was of no avail, for 
sentence of death was speedily passed upon him; the sycophant Suffolk 
(Lady Jane Grey’s own father) being one of the judges who presided at 
the trial. The Earl of Warwick behaved with more spirit than his 
parent, and upon hearing that he was to die as a traitor, which would 
involve the confiscation of his property, he coolly requested that his 
unfortunate creditors might not be victimised. “ Don’t pay me off, 
without paying them off, also,” were the chivalrous words of the young 
nobleman. The Marquis of Northampton, when called upon for his 
defence, said that he had been out with the hounds and engaged in 
field sports while the conspiracy was going on, so that he had been quite 
upon another scent; but this availed nothing for the sly old fox, who 
was immediately found guilty. Sir John Gates, as well as Sir Henry 
Gates, both of whom were fearfully unhinged, were also condemned ; 
and Northumberland made a long penitential speech from the scaffold, 
when, as if caught by the example, Sir John Gates opened out with 
extraordinary eloquence. Poor Gates having been brought to a close 
by a hint from the headsman, the axe and the curtain fell together upon 
this fearful tragedy. 

Mary soon began to show her papist predilections, and after making 
Gardiner Chancellor, she proceeded to establish a most rigorous 
censorship of the press, like a person who, having evil designs, is anxious 
to get the watch-dog muzzled as speedily as possible. She prohibited 
all persons from speaking against her, for a time ; hut putting a prohi¬ 
bition on the press is like throwing coals on a volcano, which gets 


CHAP. VTI.] 


CORONATION OF MARY. 


91 


smothered for a while, but is sure to hurst out with a stronger light on 
account of the attempt to extinguish it. 

The fanaticism of Mary is said to have been caused by the wretched¬ 
ness of her early life, during which a brutal father was continually 
threatening to chop off her head or make a nun of her. That unnatural 
parent was one of those monsters to whom it seems marvellous that 
children were ever given at all, for he could never appreciate the 
blessings they were calculated to afford, and he w r as for ever engaged in 
trying to mar their happiness. The stock from which she came was, 
however, so abominably bad, that there is nothing surprising in her 
cruelty; for when children happen to go wrong, it may be taken as a 
general rule that they get from their birth one half, and from their 
bringing-up the other half, of their iniquity. Mary, who proved herself a 
worthy descendant of a most unworthy sire, and turned the state prisons 
at once into warehouses for storing up the fuel of future martyrdom. 
Cranmer, Latimer, and others were stowed away with this view, while 
the queen herself prepared for a coronation of unusual pageantry at 
Westminster. 

The calm and philosophical Anne of Cleves—who will be remembered 
as the queen that Henry refused to have at any price—was a visitor to 
the show, and came to it in the same ‘‘fly” with the Princess Elizabeth 
The latter, as sister to the queen, carried the crown in the procession, 
and was complaining of its w r eight in a whisper—for she was always 
flirting with somebody—to Noailles, the French ambassador. “ Be 
patient,” replied the polite Parisian; “ it will be lighter when it is on 
your head; ” and an interchange of winks proved that the allusion was 
understood by the future sovereign of England. A parliament was 
assembled in less than a week, and the legislature that had lately been 
in favour of protestantism to the fullest extent, now relapsed into all the 
forms of popery. Both Houses opened with, the celebration of mass, and 
Taylor, the Bishop of Lincoln, who objected to such flagrant apostacy, 
was fairly kicked down stairs, like a bill thrown out of the Upper House, 
where tergiversation was the order of the day throughout the session. 
Another bishop, of the name of Harley, the low comedian of the epis¬ 
copal bench, whom Burnet calls a “ drie dogge,” was also ejected for 
exhibiting the same honourable consistency; but Harley restored the 
good nature of the House by throwing a little humour into his forced exit. 

A convocation of the clergy was shortly afterwards held, to get rid of 
the Reformation as far as it had gone, and bring Catholicism back again. 
Some of the bishops conformed to the new regulations laid down for 
them ; but some few, who happened to be married, found that though 
shaking off an opinion was easy enough, getting rid of a wife was far 
more difficult. The celibacy of the clergy was, of course, insisted upon; 
but Hoi gate, Archbishop of York, however happy he might have been 
never to have linked himself with Mrs. Ilolgate at all, soon discovered 
that a divorce from that good lady was not so easily accomplished as 
talked about. Several bishops who had got entangled in the connubial 


92 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


noose, were nearly finding it a lialter for their necks, inasmuch as they 
were all deprived of their sees, and some even of their lives, for having 
committed the offence of matrimony. An attempt was made to save 
them, by urging that the punishment accompanied the crime, and that 
it was hard to make those suffer who must already have endured a great 
deal; hut the plea was not allowed to prevail, and deprivation was in¬ 
flicted on all as an equal punishment. Several of the bishops conformed; 
and it has been said, in extenuation of their weakness, that their insin¬ 
cerity was not in changing from protestant to catholic, but had consisted 
in their originally veering round against their wills from catholic to 
to protestant. It matters little whether, in turning from popery to the 
Reformation, they had been robbing Peter to pay Paul, or whether, in 
changing once more, they were guilty of some additional cheat, in order to 
restore what they had taken from Peter; but it is not to be denied, that; 
on one occasion or the other they had been guilty of gross apostacy. 

On the 13th of November, 1553, Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, her 
husband Lord Guildford Dudley, and his brother Ambrose Dudley, were 
all condemned to die as traitors, by judges many of whom were the very 
people who had set on poor Jane to play the game, in which she had 
never taken the smallest interest. After sentence had been passed, 
execution was stayed. But Cranmer had no sooner been let out upon 
the charge of treason, than it was found on searching the office there was 
something else against him, whereupon he was taken and locked up 
once more upon an accusation of heresy. Lady Jane Grey had the 
freedom of the Tower presented to her in the shape of a permission to 
walk about the gardens, while Guildford Dudley and Ambrose were 
granted a few 7 moderate indulgencies—amounting, perhaps, to a set of 
skittles, a bat, trap and ball, or a couple of hockey-sticks. 

This moderation was, however, accompanied by other acts of cruelty; 
and poor Judge Hales, who had really done nothing but refuse to change 
his religion, was, though he had stoutly defended the title of the queen, 
thrown into prison. The poor fellow w r ent out of his mind, and though 
he w r as liberated, he had got so fearfully impressed with the idea of being 
burnt, that he thought to make himself fire-proof by running into the 
water; but it was so deep, and he stayed there so very long, that he 
unfortunately drowned himself. 

Mary, who had been disappointed of several husbands—for nobody who 
saw her would think of having her—now resolved to make use of her 
position as Queen of England to draw some unhappy victim into a mar¬ 
riage. Comparatively old, exceedingly hard, and totally void of all the 
milk of human kindness, she was naturally very inflammable, and she 
had already fallen in love with young Ned Courtenay, a son of the 
Marquis of Exeter; but the predilection of that young gentleman for 
her half-sister Elizabeth, had somewhat cooled the ardour of Mary, who 
found it was useless to set her cap at the young Earl of Devon, which 
was the title she had restored to the courteous Courtenay. 


CHAP. VII.] 


MARRIAGE OF MARY. 


93 


The project of a marriage continued to fill the head of the queen, 
but as it was evident there would be “ nobody coming to marry her,” 
and, indeed, “nobody coming to woo,” unless she looked out pretty 
sharply for herself, she threw aside all scruples of delicacy, and began 
to advertise through the medium of her ambassadors. The Emperor 
Charles of Spain had been affianced to her thirty years ago, and though 
she might once have been accustomed to sing “ Charlie’s my darling,” in 
her youthful days, that prince had, long ago, grown old enough to know 
better than to marry her. He nevertheless thought she might be a good 
match for his son Philip, or rather that the latter might be a match for 
the lady, inasmuch as the Spanish Prince was crafty, cruel, and bigoted. 
Mary made a last effort to get a.husband of her own choice by sending 
a proposal to Cardinal Pole, who would have nothing to do with her. 
Thus, even her indelicate eagerness to rush to the pole did not secure 
her election, and she was obliged to take Philip “ for better, for worse,” 
or rather for worse, for want of a better. 

When the Commons heard of her intention they respectfully recom¬ 
mended her to wed an Englishman, but the idea that it was necessary 
for Mary to “ first catch the Englishman ” does not seem to have 
occurred to them. She announced her intention of marrying Philip 
partly out of old associations, but the oldness of the association was all 
on her own side, for the gentleman was young in comparison to the lady 
It was not to be expected that Philip would make what he might justly 
have considered an “ alarming sacrifice ” without some equivalent, and 
it was agreed that he should have the honour and title of King of 
England, though he was not to interfere in the government. In case 
Mary survived him, he was to settle upon her £60,000 a year, but as he 
always flattered himself that he should, as he said, “ see the old girl 
out,” he looked upon this arrangement as merely nominal. 

The English people had in those days, as they still have in these, an 
objection to Spanish Marriages, and one Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had 
been in Spain, gave such a feaful picture of Philip, that the people of 
Kent, learning to regard him as something between “ Old Bogie ” and 
“ Spring-heeled Jack,” resolved to oppose his landing. Wyatt collected 
a considerable force at Rochester and marched upon London, when 
taking the first to the left, then the second to the right, they found 
themselves masters of Southwark. He had intended to give battle in 
Bermondsey, and put a cannon at the corner of the street, but it did not 
go off so well as he expected. In the meantime the queen’s forces 
began pouring upon him some of the juice of the grape, from the Tower, 
and intimating to his followers that it might affect their heads, he with¬ 
drew as far as Kingston. His object was to march upon London by the 
other road, and he had got about as far as Hammersmith when an 
accident happened to his largest buss, or blunderbuss—as he called his 
heaviest gun—and he wasted several hours in getting it, once more, 
upon its wheels again. By daylight he had got as far as Hyde Park, 
when he found that the royal forces were in the enclosure of St. James’s, 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


94 


[book V 


waiting to receive him, and having a large reserve in the hollow that 
now forms the reservoir. 

The battle commenced with a noisy overture, consisting of the firing 
of cannons, loaded only with powder, and doing no harm to anybody. 
Wyatt’s followers had dwindled very materially as he came into town; 
several of his soldiers having discovered, at Kew, it w r as not their “ cue 
to fight,” and others experiencing, at Turnham Green, sufficient to 
turn ’em pale, and turn ’em back, at the very thought of meeting the 
enemy. Wyatt was nevertheless undaunted, and rushed upon the enemy, 
who, falling quietly back, let him regularly in among the troops, with the 
full intention of never letting him out again. Without looking behind, 
he charged, at full gallop, along Charing Cross, and continuing his 
furious career up the Strand, pulled up, at last, at Ludgate Hill, which 
he found closed against him. Finding no sympathy among the citizens 
he attempted to back out, and had got as far as the Temple, where, 



Sir Thomas Wyatt surrendering to. Sir Maurice Berkeley 




















































































































































































































































































































CHAP. VII.] 


WYATTS REBELLION. 


95 


strange to say, his opponents gave him no law, and the unhappy old 
Pump, being at last caught in Pump Court, surrendered to Sir Maurice 
Berkeley. Poor Wyatt was soon afterwards condemned to death, and 
executed, as well as about four hundred of his followers, but several 
were brought with ropes round their necks before the queen, who 
permitted them to find in the halter a loop-hole for escape, by an humble 
prayer for pardon. 

Mary exceedingly angry at the attempt to shake her throne, vented 
her animosity on her little sister Elizabeth, who was brought on a litter 
to London, though she was so ill that the journey might have killed her, 
had not youth, a good constitution, and some stout porters carried her 
through the dangerous ordeal. She was accused of having been a party 
to Wyatt's rebellion, and was taken to the Tower, though not without 
giving a good deal of trouble to the proper officer, for she insisted on 
sitting down, every now and then, upon a stone step in the yard, though 
the rain was falling heavily. 

Maiy, whose reign may be considered as the original “ reign of 
terror,”—though the brutality that distinguished it was confined to a few, 
while in the French edition the whole nation thirsted for blood—who 
exercised en detail the cruelties that France subsequently practised 
en gros , sentenced to death, in rapid rotation, all who did not quite agree 
with her. The unfortunate Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord 
Guildford Dudley, were both executed on the same day, and indeed 
the victims were so numerous that we should be inclined to say, “ for 
further particulars see small bills,” if we thought that any of the true 
bills found against the parties were still extant. 

A curious commentary on the value of trial by jury was furnished 
about this time, by the extraordinary case of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton 
—the father of Throgmorton Street, and friend of Sir Thomas Wyatt— 
who after making his defence, obtained, to the surprise of everybody, a 
verdict of acquittal. Sir Thomas Bromley, the Chief Justice, began to 
cough, and “hem and ha! ” as if there must be some mistake, and as 
though he would have said, “ Gentlemen of the jury, do you know what 
you are doing?” The twelve honest men replied, that it was “all 
right,” they “ knew what they were about,” and persisted in their 
decision, until the Chief Justice, who thought every jury box ought to 
be a packing case, hinted that the matter was one in which the Crown 
was interested, and that the Crown would stand no nonsense. The 
jurymen, being still firm, they were hurried off to prison, and were only 
released upon paying enormous fines; which proved, at least, that the 
Government set a tremendous price upon their honesty. 

On the 19th of July, 1554, Philip landed at Southampton, on his 
way to fulfil his marriage contract with Maiy; but he had taken the 
precaution to send on before him the Count of Egmont, who was 
intended to be mistaken for his master, and thus serve as a sort of 
pilot engine, in case of any collision with the populace. The expedient 
was very necessary, for the pilot engine—we mean Egmont—got some 

h 2 


96 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


very hard knocks fiom several old buffers with whom he came in contact, 
and Philip, seeing the kind of reception he might expect, came accom¬ 
panied by a very long train, by way of escort to his new station. On 
the 25th of the same month he was married to the queen, at Winchester, 
and the pair, whom we must call, by courtesy, “the happy couple,”came 
to London, where a series of festivities, including the rapid descent of 
II Diavolo Somebody, along a rope from the top of St. Paul’s,* had 
been prepared in honour of the Royal marriage. 

The object of Philip in marrying Mary had been simply the crown, 
and his conduct, if not his words, very plainly told her so. Her fond¬ 
ness for him became quite a bore, particularly when he found that she 



Philip and Mary. 


could not get Parliament to agree to the projects he made her propose 
for his own aggrandisement. She had not long been the wife of Philip, 
when an attack of dropsy was added to her other interesting points, and 
her heartless husband made her a butt—or, as Strype says, a water- 
butt—for his unfeeling ridicule. In order to obtain a little popularity, 
Philip made his wife release Elizabeth, and Courtenay, Earl of Devon, 
from the Tower, as well as a few other favourites of the public, but the 
people never took to the husband of the queen, while the quarrels 


* A fact,—See Stowe. 




























































































































































CHAP. VII.] 


SMITHFIELD MARTYRS 


«7 


between the Spanish and the English were perpetual. On New-Year’s 
Day, 1555, there was a row among them at Westminster, when a Spanish 
friar got into the Abbey, and pulled away at the alarum with tremendous 
fury. He frightened the city almost into fits, and, for thus trifling with 
the rope, Philip doomed him to the halter, in order to gratify the people, 
who by no means chimed in with this extraordinary freak of bell-ringing. 

The year 1555 was signalised by the revival of all the statutes against 
heretics, and the Protestants were kept burning night and day, in the 
neighbourhood of Smithfield. We will not dwell longer than necessary 
upon this disgraceful portion of our national annals. Among many dis¬ 
tinguished persons who suffered death were Pddley, Latimer, and 
Cranmer, who all exhibited firmness worthy of a better fate, and it is 
said of Cranmer that he put his right hand into the fire first, for having, 
some time before, signed some documents of recantation, in the hope of 
saving his life at the expense of his consistency. In three years about 
three hundred individuals perished at the stake, through refusing to put 
their characters at stake by vacillation in the moment of danger. 

After the death of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole was installed in the see of 
Canterbury, for Mary’s rage against the Protestants was extreme, and 
she hoped that the fires of Smithfield would be kept alive by that 
exalted prelate, though in expecting to stir them up with the long Pole 
she was somewhat disappointed, for the new archbishop was rather 
moderate than otherwise in his ecclesiastical policy. 

The queen’s object was to control England in the war between 
France and Spain, but Pole, even at the risk of becoming in his turn 
a scaffold Pole, resisted the royal will to the extent of his power. The 
fact is that Philip, who had never married for love, was determined to 
be as plain with his wife as she was plain to him, and told her that 
unless he could make his union profitable, lie should make a slip-knot 
of the nuptial tie, and get away from it altogether. Alarmed at the 
prospect of being left “ a lone woman ” on the throne, she sought and 
found a pretext for declaring a war against France by getting up one 
of those confessions which in those days a judicious use of the torture 
could always procure at a few hours’ notice. 

Some unhappy agitators were detected in a small conspiracy, when 
the fact or falsehood of their having been encouraged by Henry 
of France was, after the intense application of the screw, regularly 
screwed out of them. They were made to fabricate stories to suit the 
purposes of the queen, and indeed their invention was literally put to 
the rack by the cruelties to which they were subjected. War against 
France was now declared, but the revenue was in such a miserable state 
that Mary was obliged to beg, borrow, and steal in every direction for 
the necessary funds to commence hostilities. Having at last got together 
an army of ten thousand men, she found that the troops must be fed, 
and she accordingly seized all the corn she could find, threatening at 
the same time to thrash the owners like their own wheat if they had 
the impudence to ask for the value of the stolen property. 


98 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


The well-known impolicy of interfering in other people’s quarrels was 
powerfully illustrated by the fate of the English interposition in the 
dispute between France and Spain, for after a few trifling advantages, 
one of which was the taking of Ham before breakfast by Philip himself, 
England sustained a loss, which was at that time regarded as one of the 
most serious character. Valour, under the guise of the great Duke of 
Guise, wrested Calais from its masters, and restored it to the French, 
whose hearts rebounded with boundless joy at the acquisition of this 
valuable fortress. 

The exchequer was reduced to such a beggarly condition by the ex¬ 
penses of the late unfortunate war, that the queen, who never called 
upon her Parliament unless she wanted something, was compelled to 
summon the commons. With their usual squeezability they permitted 
to flow into the public coffers sufficient to keep the royal head above 
water; and one Copley, who ventured a few words by way of remon¬ 
strance, was pusillanimously committed to that custody from which the 
old English expression of “ cowardy cowardy custard ” [query, custod.) 
has been supposed to derive its origin. 

Part of the produce of the recent subsidy was laid out in ships, and 
as the ships came to no good, it was said at the time that this appro¬ 
priation of the money was very like making ducks and drakes of it. 
The fleet after passing over the bosom of the ocean, came to Brest, but 
the breastworks were so strong, that the British force had not the heart 
to make an attack upon them, Some miscellaneous pillage was perpe¬ 
trated in the neighbourhood by the English, who nevertheless came off 
second best; and Philip, who was getting rather tired of the business, 
was willing to treat with a view to a treaty. 

While thinking how he should retire from foreign hostilities, he 
received from England tidings that held out the certain prospect of 
domestic peace, for he got the news of the death of his wife Mary 
Miserable and middle-aged, detested and dropsical, this wretched woman 
was tormented by every kind of reflection, from that presented by the 
mirror of her own mind, to the dismal prospect shadowed forth in her 
looking-glass. She had lost Calais ; but, as the audacious Strype has 
boldly suggested, she might have become callous to that, had she not 
known the fearful fact, that her husband Philip declared he had had his 
fill of double cursedness, and intended to try in Spain what a timely 
return to single blessedness might do for him. All these troubles 
proved, like herself, unbearable, and on the 17tli of November, 1558, 
she expired, after a short and yet too long a reign of five years, four 
months, and eleven days. She had reached the forty-third year of her 
age, and must have made the most of her time, in one way at least ; 
for no woman of her age had obtained so much odium of a durable 
quality, as she in her comparatively short life had acquired. 

If we were to draw a faithful character of this princess, we need do 
nothing more than upset our inkstand over our paper, and cause the 
saturated manuscript to be transferred to our pages in one enormous 


CHAP. VII.] 


HEATH OF MARY. 


99 


black blot; for we are sure that no printer’s type could furnish a type 
of the person whom we have the horribly black job of handing down— 



Philip (of England and Spain) hears of his wife’s death. 


or rather knocking down—to posterity. Those indefatigable readers 
who are desirous of having the appropriate epithets which Mary’s 
character deserves, are requested to take down the dictionary, and 
having selected from it all the adjectives expressive of badness that 
the language contains, place them in a string or a series of strings, 
before the name of Mary. 

To look for her virtues would require the aid of one of those solar 
microscopes which give visibility to the merest atom, and the particle if 
even discovered, might be deposited in the mental eye without its being 
susceptible of anything having entered it. She seems to have possessed 
some sincerity; but this only gave a certain degree of vigour to her evil 
propensities. She was perhaps susceptible of some attachments, but so 
is a boa constrictor, though few would conceive it a privilege to be held 
in the firm embraces of that paragon of tenacity towards those with 
whose fate it happens to twine itself. She'had a certain vigour of 
mind, just as the tiger has a certain vigour of spring, a parallel the 
force of which her victims very frequently experienced. 

The loss of Calais was, perhaps, one of the most important events 


































































































100 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


of Mary’s reign, and it is said to have had such an effect upon her, that 
she declared, when she died the word Calais would he found engraved 
upon her heart: though we are quite sure, that if the word had been 
found at all, it would not have presented itself as an engraving, but as 
a lithograph. For two hundred years the town had been in the posses¬ 
sion of the English, and it was through a miserable economy in cutting 
down the garrison during the winter months, and trying to work the 
thing at a reduced expense, that the whole concern fell into the power 
of the enemy. This paltry system proved, of course, unprofitable in 
the end; for when the Duke of Guise made his attack, those points 
that required two or three stout fellows to defend them, were left to the 
fatal imbecility of “a man and a boy,”—a couple never yet known to 
heartily co-operate. It is the unhappy blunder of a man and a boy 
being left to pull together as unsympathetically as an elephant and an 
ass, that has impeded the progress of so many of our public works; and 
it was, unquestionably, the trial of the “man and boy” system at Calais 
during the winter months, that, in the early part of 1558, caused the 
loss of the city. The English had been in the habit of trusting during 
the cold weather to the snow, and the overflowing of the marshes, to 
keep out the French; but the Duke of Guise was not afraid of getting 
his feet wet, and besides, as he wittily observed, “ I can always rely on 
the strength of my pumps to keep the water out.” He ultimately made 
a resolute splash, and, though often up to his middle in mud, he drove 
the English clean out of the citadel. 

It may be worth while to mention, that Mary’s reign was the first in 
which friendly relations with Russia were established, through some 
English traders who found themselves, or rather lost themselves, at 
Archangel, in the course of a wild-goose search for a north-east passage. 
The Czar, after asking them what they were doing there, and telling them 
they had come fearfully out of their way, received them very kindly; 
but it does not seem that any north-east passage, beyond the old court 
which used to lead from Holborn Hill to Clerkenwell, was at that time 
discovered. 

Few if any salutary laws were passed in her reign, though a bad one 
was repealed, which had ruined the wool trade, by prohibiting any one 
from making wool who had not served seven years’ apprenticeship 
There was of course a great cry and very little w r ool in consequence of 
this absurd enactment, which was so decidedly impolitic that we can 
give Mary very little credit for having done away with it 


CHAP. V11I.J 


ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH. 


101 


CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. 

ELIZABETH. 

he death of Mary was concealed 
for some hours, since it is only 
bad news that will travel very 
fast; but when the truth did 
come to be generally known, 
the joy which burst out on all 
sides took the more decent 
form of exultation at the acces¬ 
sion of the new sovei'eign. 
Elizabeth, Betsy, Bessy, or 
Bess as she has been indis¬ 
criminately called, was at Hat¬ 
field when her sister died, and 
she soon moved to London, 
escorted by one of those patri¬ 
otic mobs which are always 
ready to hoot and halloo for 
any distance the last new so¬ 
vereign. 

On the 15th of January, 
1559, the queen was crowned 
at Westminster Abbev, but 
during the ceremony she w 7 as 
compelled to remain bare¬ 
headed for a considerable time, as on account of her suspected Protestant 
predilections not one of the Bishops would invest her with the diadem. 
In vain did she give appealing looks to the entire bench, until at last a 
decided ogle took effect on Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, who, 
snatching up the bauble with a shout of “ Here goes,” boldly bonneted 
the royal maiden. 

On the 25th of the same month a Parliament assembled, when Cecil 
and Sir Nicholas Bacon made their debuts on the treasury benches. 
Cecil was chief secretary, or key of the Cabinet, while Bacon w 7 as great 
seal, with instructions to keep continually on the watch in the capacity 
of Keeper. The first act of the Parliament was to restore many of the 
laws of religion existing in Edward’s reign, and an attempt was made to 
reinstate such clergymen as had been deprived on account of marriage; 
but Elizabeth, who began to show anti-matrimonial opinions at the very 
beginning of her reign, would not accede to such an arrangement. 
Early in the session the Parliament tried its hand at royal match-making 






























































102 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


by carrying up an address to the queen, recommending her to take a 
husband; but in a somewhat prudish tone she expressed at once her 
horror at “ the fellows,” and her determination to have nothing to do 
with them. Her sincerity was soon put to the test by a direct offer 
from Philip, her late sister’s husband; but a playful “ go along with 
rou,” and a coquettish “ a-done, do ! ” were the utmost words of encou¬ 
ragement he could manage to extract from her. 

Parliament broke up on the 8th of May, and on the 15 th the bishops 
and other churchmen of note were summoned to take the oath of con¬ 
formity to the new statutes. Much to the credit of their consistency 
they all refused, with the exception of one Kitchen, the Bishop of 
Llandaff, a low fellow, whose name implies his origin. This Kitchen 
had acquired the rotatory motion of the roasting-jack, as well as a fond¬ 
ness for sops in the pan, for he had been twirling round and having a 
finger in the ecclesiastical pie since the year 1545, from which time to 
that of Elizabeth he had, through all changes, stuck to his bishopric 
The clergy, who had refused to conform to the Protestant religion, were 
on the whole gently dealt with, some being exported to Spain amid the 
luggage of the Spanish ambassador, and a few being quartered upon 
their successors in England. Most of the inferior clergy seemed to 
have been made of Kitchen-stuff, that is to say, they appeared to be 
composed of much the same material as the Bishop Kitchen we have 
named, and were at all events alive to the necessity of keeping the pot 
boiling, for out of 9400 persons holding benefices, there were scarcely 
more than a hundred, exclusive of the fifteen bishops, who quitted 
their preferments rather than change their religion. 

We must now look at Scotland, of which the celebrated Mary was 
queen when she was suddenly called to France to share the throne 
which had devolved upon her husband, Francis II., or rather upon 
which he had devolved by the death of his father, Henry. This some¬ 
what elderly gentleman had been playing the fool in a tilting match, 
which was rather infra dig. at his time of life, and ended in his receiving 
a dig in the eye from a broken lance, which ultimately closed in death 
both the wounded and its companion optic. In the absence of Mary 
from Scotland, Elizabeth did her utmost to advance the Protestant 
cause in that country, and dealt out some heavy blows through the 
medium of the celebrated Knox against the Catholics. Mary’s mamma, 
who had remained at home to keep house as it were in her daughter’s 
absence, did not exactly like what was passing, particularly when she 
found that English emissaries were continually passing to and fro, for 
the purpose of bribing the Scotch, whose “itching palm” has always 
been a national characteristic that we decline accounting for. The 
English were bent on getting the French out of Scotland, but the 
task was as difficult as expelling the fleas from a hay mattress, in which 
they have once got embedded. After a good deal of desultory fighting, 
the Queen Regent was worried out of her life, and she was no sooner 
gone, than some of her most devoted adherents were off like shots to 


CHAP. VIII.] 


MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 


103 


draw up a treaty with the enemy. Peace was proclaimed, and the 
French Governor of Leith gave the besiegers a dinner, at which salted 
horse was the only animal food, for there was not even a saddle of 
mutton to make the horse go off with effect at this truly horsepitable 
banquet. By the treaty mutual indemnities were exchanged, oblivion 
of the past was determined upon at Leith, which on that occasion 
became a veritable Lethe. Elizabeth had two or three flags in Scotland 
surrendered to her, but religion, which was the ostensible cause of the 
whole dispute, w r as permitted to stand over as an open question. 

It was not to be expected that such a capital match as the Queen of 
England would fail to be the subject of several flames, and an old beau, 
in the person of Eric, now 7 the King of Sweden, together with tw r o or 
three other suitors, royal as well as noble, sent in the most tender 
tenders for the hand of Elizabeth. Like a true coquette, she gave 
encouragement to all; and even some seedy adventurers among her 
own subjects were induced to strike up to her. 

Mary, who as great niece of Henry VIII. had in the first instance 
assumed the arms and title of Queen of England, a measure almost as 
futile as if Snooks of Surrey should assume the arms and title of 
Seringapatam, relinquished her nominal pretensions upon the death of 
her husband, which happened on the 5th of December, 1560. Mary 
had become so habituated to the splendid formalities of the French 
Court that on returning to Scotland the substantial barrenness of that 
bleak country completely disgusted her. Tears, it is said, came into 
her eyes when she saw the wretched ponies that were about to convey 
herself and her ladies from the water-side to ITolyrood, while the 
saddles, made of wood, gave her such a series of bumpers at parting 
that she declared the impression made by her reception would never 
be forgotten. 

Mary, who had been born and bred a Catholic, was of course anxious 
for the privilege of following her own religion; but her Scotch subjects, 
who claimed liberty of conscience for themselves, practised upon their 
unfortunate sovereign the most brutal and intolerant tyranny. She was 
insulted on her way to mass, her indulgence in the most harmless 
amusements was savagely condemned, and she was continually exposed 
to the hardest raps from Knox, who undertook the task of converting 
her. This vulgar, but zealous, and no doubt sincere personage endea¬ 
voured to effect his purpose by coarse abuse, and always spoke of his 
queen from the pulpit as Jezabel. In vain did Mary endeavour to quiet 
her turbulent and libellous assailant by offering him private audiences; 
but, as if nothing short of mob popularity would answer his purpose, he 
rudely declined her invitation, telling her it was her duty to come fb 
him, and continued to make the pulpit the medium of the most malig¬ 
nant assaults on his sovereign. However honest and upright the 
intentions of Knox may have been, his brutal manner of telling his 
home truths deprived them of much of their influence; and Knox made 
very few effective hits in the course of his noisy and vituperative career 
as a Presbvterian Reformer. 


104 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book y. 


Elizabeth saw with unamiabl*, pleasure that her rival, Mary, was 
having what, very figuratively speaking, may be termed, a nice time of 
it. The English queen busily occupied herself in feathering her own 
nest in a variety of ways, and, among other measures, she called in all 
the debased coin; for, as she sometimes said, with a sneer at poor 
Mary, “ I have a great objection to light sovereigns.” She filled her 
arsenals with arms, and had quite a conservatory of grape at the Tower, 
while, by way of putting the country into a state of defence, she resorted 
to the very odd expedient of reviewing the militia. She improved the 
arts of making gunpowder and casting cannon, so that, as she used to 
say, “ every brave brick in my army may have a supply of mortar, with 
which, in the^hour of battle, he may cement the interests of my empire ” 
The increase of the navy occupied her special care, and she laid the 
foundation of that glorious system which has given immortality to our 
naval hornpipes, and made our enemies dance at the balls given by our 
British seamen. It was to Elizabeth we owe the origin of that enthu¬ 
siasm which induces “ honest Jack,” as he facetiously calls himself, to 
spend all his wages in a week, and to conclude a rapid series of light¬ 
hearted freaks as the helplessly inebriated fare of a metropolitan cab. 



Honest Jack Tars of the Period. 


or the equally inanimate inmate of a London station-house. The 
interior of Elizabeth’s Court was a scene of petty rivalries and 





































































































CHAP. VIII.] 


DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER. 


105 


jealousies, for she was surrounded with various suitors, and though she 
gave encouragement to nearly all, the valuable precept, “ Ne sutor ultra 
crepidam ,” seems never to have escaped her memory. She would treat 
them with easy familiarity, such as thumping their backs and patting 
their cheeks ; but if any of them ventured upon trying to get on with 
her at the same slapping pace, she would administer a rap of the 
knuckles that at once discouraged them from trying their hands at a 
renewal of such familiarity. 

Though not blinded to the adulation of her courtiers, she was very 
nearly becoming so by the small-pox, against which, however, a good 
constitution was happily pitted. On her recovery, the Parliament 
fearing the explosion that might have ensued had she popped off without 
a successor having been named, entreated her either to marry, or 
appoint some lady or gentleman to fill the throne in the event of there 
being a vacancy. With a good deal of that old traditional feeling 
imputed to the anonymous dog in the very indefinite manger, who was 
unwilling to relinquish to others what he was unable personally to enjoy, 
Elizabeth was very reluctant to say who should come after her as queen, 
but she held out a vague prospect that her marriage would not be 
impossible, in the event of any very eligible offer happening to present 
itself. This indirect advertisement of her hand was at once answered 
by the Duke of Wirtemberg, a small German, whose pretensions were 
contemptuously pooh-pooh’d! and indeed every post brought letters 
from various single men of prepossessing appearance, gentlemanly 
manners, and amiable disposition, who were anxious to take this some¬ 
what unusual method of placing their hands and hearts at the service 
of the Queen of England. In the very largest field there will gene¬ 
rally be one or two favourites, and in Elizabeth’s good books the names 
of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, stood 
so high, that there might have been even betting upon both, with a 
shade or two, perhaps, in the former’s favour 

Mary of Scotland was less indifferent on the subject of marriage 
than the English queen, and, indeed, the former went so seriously into 
the matrimonial market, as to consult the latter on the subject of a 
judicious selection. Apparently with the intention of throwing the 
matter back, Elizabeth offered her own favourite, Dudley, Earl of 
Leicester, as a husband for Mary; but on the latter, after recovering 
from her surprise, exclaiming, “ Well, I don’t mind,” the virgin Queen 
of England, mentally responding, “ Oh ! yes ! I dare say,” backed out 
of her proposition. The Earl of Leicester was one of those good- 
looking scamps who used, in the last century, to go by the name of 
“pretty fellows,”but in our own more enlightened age, would obtain no 
gentler appellation, than “ pretty scoundrels.” The virtuous Elizabeth 
liked to have him about her on account of his good looks, but if the 
homely proverb, that “ handsome is as handsome does,” had prevailed 
he would have been thought as little ornamental in person, as in 
mind he was deformed and hideous. Notwithstanding the pattern of 


10G 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


propriety as which the virgin Queen of England has been, by some 
historians, extolled, she gave encouragement to Leicester, whom she 
knew to he a married man, until, by murdering his wife, he removed 
that slight harrier to the accomplishment of his ambitious wishes. He 
reported that his unfortunate lady had tumbled down stairs, but this 
was a daring flight of a guilty imagination, and there is little doubt 
that while staying in the house of her husband’s servant, Foster, he 
forced her either over the balustrade, or got rid of her by some other 
means of equal violence. 

Poor Mary, who was really in need of a protector, becoming impatient 
at the delay in choosing her 
a husband, at length selected 
one for herself, in the person 
of her cousin, Henry Stuart, 

Lord Darnley. This young 
nobleman was a mere lad in 
age, but a perfect ladder in 
height, for he was very tall, 
and very thin, so that if he 
could offer Mary no substan¬ 
tial support, he was, at all 
events, a person she might 
look up to, as may be said, 
familiarly, “at a stretch,” in 
cases of great emergency. Fie 
was the son of Henry YIII.’s 
sister’s daughter’s second 
husband, and was accord¬ 
ingly the next heir but one 
to the English throne, if any 
one could be called an heir 
at all in those days, when 
might overcame right in a 
manner somewhat unceremo¬ 


nious. 


Darnley, though showy in 
appearance, was in reality a 
fool, and it might be said 
that instead of having been 
born with a silver spoon in 
his mouth, he was in him¬ 
self the embodiment of that 
auspicious article. Though ex¬ 
ceedingly tall, he was tremen¬ 
dously shallow, and before 



Lord Darnley. 


he had been married two months, he acted with so much insolence, that 
Mary could scarcely get a servant to stay with her. His own father, 





















CHAP. VIII.] 


MURDER OF RIZZIO. 


1 07 


old Lennox, who had got a snug place in the household, packed up his 
box at a moment’s notice, declaring he would not stop, and the wretched 
royal spoon found in the glass the only pursuit with which his habits 
were congenial. 

Though neglectful of his young and lovely wife, he claimed the bad 
husband’s privilege of being jealous of the attentions of others, and 
Signor David Rizzio, the first and only tenor at the Scotch court, soon 
furnished ground for Darnley’s suspicions of Mary's fidelity. Rizzio 
had come over in the suite of the ambassador of Savoy, as a professor of 
the spinette, and a teacher of foreign languages. In his vocal capacity 
he attended evening parties, and having been introduced at court, his 
airs soon wafted him into the favour of his sovereign. His knowledge 
of the French language caused him to be promoted to the vacant post of 
French secretary to the queen, when an outcry was raised because a 
Scotchman was not appointed to the office, though not a soul among the 
natives had any pretensions to understanding the language in which 
the sendees of a secretary were required. Many of them maintained 
that their broken Scotch would have been an excellent substitute for 
Rizzio’s unintelligible gibberish, and the nobles used to make faces at 
him, shoulder him, or taunt him as a base-born fiddler even in the 
presence of his sovereign. 

The ill-used musician, who understood scarcely a word of the insulting 
language that was addressed to him, happening to catch the sound of the 
word fiddle, gallantly declared that he would be found toujours Jidele to 
the royal lady who had honoured him by her favour. There seems to 
be good reason for doubt whether the scandalous stories concerning 
Mary and her French secretary were true, and as in duty bound we 
give the benefit of the doubt to the accused parties. Poor Rizzio had 
however become such an object of hatred to the people about the Court, 
that one evening, as he sat at a side-table taking his supper, as he 
always did when the queen was present, a party of armed men, headed 
by Darnley himself, rushed into the chamber where the Duchess of 
Argyle and Erskine, the Governor of Holyrood, were also present. 
Rizzio had probably been favouring the company with a song or songs, 
and was whetting his whistle, with a view perhaps to further melody, when 
he was brutally desired to “ come out of that ” by the ruffian Ruthven, 
whose gout for murder was so excessive that he had left a sick bed to 
take a part in the sanguinary business. To make a long and painful 
story short, Rizzio was savagely butchered as he clung to the skirts of 
Mary’s dress in a vain hope to find shelter under petticoat influence. 
For having caused the death of Rizzio, Mary never forgave Darnley, 
who took to drink, in the hope of drowning care ; but an evil conscience 
seems to be supplied with corks, which carry it up to the surface of the 
deepest bowl in which an attempt was ever made to get rid of it. 

On the 19th of June, 1566, there appeared, among the births of the 
day, the announcement of “ Mary, Queen of Scots, of a son and heir at 
Holyrood.” The infant was James VI., of Scotland, and subsequently 


108 


COMIC niSTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


the first of England, who was not a Jem remarkable for any particular 
brilliancy. It had previously been arranged that Elizabeth should 
stand godmother to the first-born of Mary, and intelligence of the 
interesting event was therefore conveyed to the English Queen by special 
express through that diligent overland male, the faithful Melville. 
Elizabeth was having a romp after a supper at Greenwich when the 
news arrived, and was in the midst of a furious fandango, when Cecil 
whispered something in her ear which struck her all of a heap, and 
caused her to leave her fandango unfinished. Speedily, however, re¬ 
gaining her composure, she gave the ambassador something for himself, 
and charged him with the usual infantine presents for her royal godson. 

The question of a successor to Elizabeth now turned up again 
with increased interest since the birth of little James; but Elizabeth, 
becoming irritable and ill-humoured, declared she was looking out for a 
husband, and intended to have an heir of her own, which would put an 
end to all the airs and graces which other people were exhibiting. 
When the Commons grew more urgent on the point, she became 
angry in the extreme, for the subject must have been rather a delicate 
one with Elizabeth, who was growing every day a less eligible match, 
and might not perhaps have succeeded in finding a husband equal in 
point of station to an alliance with the Queen of England. 


CHAP. TX.] 


DEATH OF DARNLEY. 


109 




CHAPTER THE NINTH. 

ELIZABETH (CONTINUED). 

Mary and her husband were leading the life familiarly known as cat 
and dog; but the cat was in this instance getting rather the best of it. 
She would not allow him to be present at the christening party given in 
honour of their little son, and he was never permitted to hold the baby, 
or enjoy any of those privileges of paternity which are rather honorary 
than agreeable to the individual by whom they are exercised. In 
ordering a dinner or forming a cabinet his wishes were equally disre¬ 
garded, and if he happened to have objected to a particular dish he 
was very likely to be told there was nothing else in the house; while 
Murray, Bothwell, and Huntley, whom he hated, were appointed to the 
ministry. It was at length determined to get him entirely out of the 
way; and, as he happened to have taken the small-pox, it was agreed 
that he should sleep out, on account of the baby, who, though very soon 
cowed in his after life, had not undergone the process of vaccination, for 
the simple reason that Dr. Jenner had not invented it. Darnley had 
consequently a bed at a lonely bouse called the Kirk-a-field, where he 
was taken in only that he might be the more effectually done for by his 
enemies. 

An explosion was heard in the middle of the night, and on the next 
morning the house was found in ruins, with Darnley doubled up under 
a tree at some considerable distance. It was reported that lightning 
had been the cause of the event; but it is not likely that lightning would 
have known how to conduct itself with such precision as to have carried 
Darnley out of a three-pair of stairs window, and lay him down at a 
considerable distance from the house, without breaking a bone, or in¬ 
flicting a bruise of any description whatever. There is every ground 
for suspicion that Bothwell and his colleagues were instrumental to 
Darnley’s death; but in order to throw dust—or gold-dust—in the 
public eye, they offered a reward of two thousand pounds for the mur¬ 
derers. This liberality was cheap enough, for they knew they could not 
be called upon to pay any reward, they being themselves the parties for 
whom they advertised. A paper war was nevertheless commenced upon 
the walls, in which the murderers were advertised for on one side, and 
pointed out by name upon the other, when fresh rewards were offered, 
and the bill-stickers warned to beware of the libel they were helping to 
disseminate. At length, such a stir \>as created, that on April 12th, 
1567, Bothwell was put upon his trial, when by some wilful negligence 
the counsel for the prosecution had no brief, and was of course unable 
to offer any evidence. The accused was accordingly acquitted, and the 
ends of justice were defeated in a manner that sometimes prevails in 

VOL. II i 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


no 


[BOOK V 


our own day, by an omission to instruct counsel; which seems to be a 
failing.that may at least claim the merit of antiquity. 

Though Bothwell was not to be executed for his crime, he was des¬ 
tined to be married; which, next to the capital penalty, was perhaps 
the highest he could pay, particularly as Mary, who had already seen out 
a couple of husbands and a favourite, was the lady destined for his 
future partner. Bothwell had the audacity to give a supper at a tavern 
in Edinburgh, at the close of the session of Parliament—an entertain¬ 
ment somewhat similar to our ministerial whitebait arrangement at 
Blackwall—when he drew from his pocket a recommendation of himself 
as a fitting husband for the Queen of Scotland. Eight bishops, nine 
earls, and seven lords, most of whom were under the influence of toddy, 
which turned them into toadies of Bothwell, affixed their names to the 
document; and, armed with this instrument, he, at the head of a thousand 
horse, effected the forcible abduction of Mary on her way from Stirling 
Castle. An elopement on such an extensive scale was something very 
unusual, even in those days of extravagance, and it has been doubted 
whether it was with Mary’s own consent that Bothwell run away with 
her. It is, however, indisputable that, after making him Duke of Ork¬ 
ney on the 12th of May, she married him on the 15th, and a number of 
fresh raps from Knox followed, as a matter of course, the imprudence 
she had been guilty of. Her subjects took so much offence at this pro¬ 
ceeding, that they rose against her; and Bothwell, abandoning her to 
her fate by flying to Denmark, left her to settle the matter as she could 
with her own people. A defenceless woman, and a female in distress, 
was of course impotent against an army of raw Scotchmen—whose raw¬ 
ness is so excessive, that they can very seldom be done—and Mary was 
consigned as a prisoner to the island of Loclileven. It may be as well 
to dispose of Bothwell at once, before we proceed; and, having traced 
him to Denmark, we meet him picking up a scanty subsistence by doing 
what we are justified in terming pirates’ work in general. The badness 
of business or some other cause ultimately turned his head, and we find 
him subsequently an inmate of an asylum for lunatics. Here he took 
to writing confessions; but some of them were so vague, and all of them 
so contradictory, that, recollecting the horrid story-teller Bothwell was 
known to be, we are at a loss to decide how much credit may be attached 
to his statements. If, as a general rule, we may believe half what is 
said, we shall believe nothing that Bothwell has told us; for he has 
himself contradicted one half of his own story, and the other moiety 
must be struck off in pursuance of the principle we have just been 
adverting to. The fact of his death, not having come from his own 
mouth, may, however, be safely relied upon. 

While Mary was a prisoner at Lochleven, her subjects took advantage 
of her helplessness to make her sign her own abdication, and settle the 
crown on the head of her baby son, whose first caps had scarcely been 
laid aside when they had to be replaced by the royal diadem. Her 
half-brother, Murray, was appointed regent, and, coming over to Scotland, 


CHAP. IX. 1 ! 


MARY ELOPES WITH DOUGLAS 


111 


lie was crowned at Stirling, where all who declared themselves sterling 
friends of poor Mary, gave in their adherence to the new ruler. 

There was staying with the governor of the prison a young hobble¬ 
dehoy of the name of George Douglas, who being on a visit to his 
brother, was allowed the privilege of seeing the royal captive. Master 
George Douglas, in natural accordance with the sentimentality peculiar 
to seventeen, fell sheepishly in love with the handsome Mary. She 
gave some encouragement to the gawky youth, but rather with the 
view of getting him to aid her in an escape, than out of any regard to 
the over sensitive stripling. Going to his brother’s bedroom in the 
night, the boy took the keys from the basket in which they were 



Mary’s Elopement. 


deposited, and letting Mary out, he handed her to a skiff and took her 
for a row. without thinking of the row his conduct uas leading to. 

i 2 












































































































































































































]]2 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK V 

When she reached the shore she was joined by several friends, and 
marched, as the only lady among six thousand men, in the direction of 
Dumbarton. Murray, however, was instantly on the alert, and meeting 
her near Glasgow, he gave her such a routing, that she was glad to fly 
anywhere she could, to get out of the way of his rough treatment. 
After some little consideration she determined to make for England ; 
and, throwing herself and retinue into a fishing-smack, she sailed smack 
for Workington, whence she resolved on walking to Carlisle, against the 
advice of her followers. 

Though Elizabeth had expressed some sympathy towards Mary in her 
struggles, the English queen determined that her Scottish sister was 
not a person that could be received at the Court of a virgin—and such 
a virgin—sovereign. The unfortunate woman, who had come over for 
protection as a fugitive, was at once made a prisoner, first at Carlisle 
and then at Bolton, when she was virtually put upon her trial for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether she was good enough to be visited by 
that dragon of virtue, the chaste Elizabeth. 

In order to inculpate the Queen of Scots, an old melodramatic inci¬ 
dent, that then perhaps had the merit of novelty, was resorted to by 
Murray, who produced, towards the closing scene of the trial, a packet of 
letters, by which it was pretended that Mary had furnished proofs of 
her own share in the murder of her husband Darnley. It was not 
very likely that, if guilty, she would have taken the trouble to commit 
the fact to paper, or to leave the letters about; and it only wanted a 
dagger wrapped in rag smeared over with red ochre, to complete the 
melodramatic denouement that Murray seemed anxious to arrive at. 
These “ properties,” if w T e may be allowed the expression, had an 
unfavourable effect upon Mary’s cause, and a delay having taken place 
in the proceedings, Murray took advantage of it to offer to wash out the 
red ochre from the retributive rag, and throw all the letters in the fire, 
on condition of his being left to do as he pleased with the Scotch 
regency. To this proposition Mary refused to accede, and defied him to 
the proof of his charges, which were believed to be chiefly false ; and 
she retaliated upon him by accusing him of having been accessary to 
the death of Darnley. As Elizabeth candidly acknowledged that she 
believed neither, she at first thought of punishing both; but at length 
Murray was furnished with means to return home, while poor Mary was 
conveyed to Tutbury in the county of Stafford, where it does not appear 
that even the old woman of Tutbury was allowed to be sometimes the 
companion of her captivity 

The royal prisoner was now under the supervision of the Earl of 
Shrewsbury, and was permitted, at last, to see a few visitors, several of 
whom were smitten by the charms of one who, though become a little 
passe, was, from the gentleness of her manners, always sure to be 
popular. Norfolk was so much taken with her that he offered her his 
hand, and promised to employ it in handing her on to the throne of 
England. As there was still an obstacle to the marriage, outstanding 


cnAP. ix.] 


TRIAL OF THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. 


115 


in the name of Bothwell, Mary could only consent, subject to that 
person’s approval. The piratical business in Denmark having become 
slack, he was glad to take a small bonus to agree to a divorce, and an 
alliance between Norfolk and Mary Queen of Scots was understood, in 
private circles, to be one of the marriages in high life, which the season 
would see solemnised. Unfortunately for the parties interested, Mary 



Lord Burleigh. 


had to send a remittance, in the year 1571, to some friends in Scotland, 
and the post being either irregular or untrustworthy, she had despatched 
the communication by hand, through a confidential servant of the Duke 
of Norfolk, whose name was Banister. This Banister, who was not in 
the secret, went gaping about with the letter in his hand, and, thinking 
there was something mysterious about it, took it to Lord Burleigh, whose 
significant shakes of the head have earned him a note of admiration (!) 
in the pages of history. Burleigh, taking the letter in his hand, and 
placing his fore-finger on the side of his nose, began to wag his head 
from side to side, like the pendulum of a clock, as if he would be up to 
the time of day, according to his usual fashion; when, deliberately 
holding the letter up to the light, he, in the most ungentlemanly 
manner, perused every word of it. He ascertained that Norfolk and 
Mary were contriving to drive Elizabeth from the throne, and the 
Duke was accordingly brought to trial. The stupidity of his servants 
completed his ruin, for his secretary, instead of destroying the evidences 
of his master’s guilt, had merely stowed them away under the door 




114 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK Y. 


mats, and stuffed them among the tiles, so that the house from top to 
toe bore testimony to the guilt of its owner. He was beheaded in 
1572, Elizabeth declaring, as she always did when it was too late, that 
she intended pardoning him, but that somehow or other her royal 
clemency was not forthcoming until it was too late to be of any use to 
its contemplated object. 

The queen was urged by many of her admirers to get rid of Mary at 
once; but, as a cat delights to play with a mouse, Elizabeth seemed to 
take pleasure in exercising a feline influence over her unfortunate 
prisoner. The Protestant cause had, about this time, been violently 
assailed in France, and Elizabeth encouraged the departure of English 
volunteers to aid the French Huguenots. Among the British auxiliary 
legion that went forth on this expedition were, of course, a number of 
adventurers, but one of them, in particular, was destined to cut a 
conspicuous figure in the history of his country. This was Walter 
Raleigh, who had been in the habit of huzzaing at every royal progress, 
and keeping up a loyal shouting at the side of the carriage of the 
queen, whenever he met it in the public thoroughfares In her visits 
to Greenwich, Raleigh was often found waiting at the stairs to see her 
land, and on one occasion the queen w r as about to set her foot in a 
puddle, when the adventurer, taking off his cloak, converted it into a 
temporary square of carpeting, to prevent Elizabeth from making 
a greater splash than she intended, on her arrival at Greenwich The 
cloak itself was of no particular value, and a little water was more 
likely to freshen it up than to detract from its already faded beauty ; 
but the incident flattered the vanity of the queen, and it is said that 
she never forgot the delicate attention that Walter Raleigh had shown 
to her. 

In the year 1571 a rumour got into circulation that a match was on 
the tapis between Mary and the Duke of Anjou, one of the brothers of 
the French king; and though the report was unfounded, Elizabeth 
was so jealous of any one marrying anybody but herself, that she, for 
about the twentieth time, threw herself into the European market, as an 
eligible investment for any one who would venture upon a speculation 
of such a very awful character. She sent over Walsingham as her 
ambassador, to see what could be done; but the Duke of Anjou, after 
sufficient negotiation to put an end to any match that might have been 
contemplated between Mary and himself, had the firmness to decline 
the honour of an alliance with Elizabeth. The aged angler next baited 
a hook for the young Duke of Alengon, the boy brother of the Duke of 
Anjou, but the friends of the child stepped in to prevent the sacrifice. 

It was not long after the events we have described, that a conspiracy 
to take Mary out of prison, and put Elizabeth out of the world, was by 
accident discovered. One Babington, a man of ardent mind, was impli¬ 
cated in this disgraceful affair, which was discovered by the dangerous 
and irregular practice of thrusting letters through chinks in walls,—at a 
time, however, when the post-office arrangements were not so complete 




















































































































































































































































































\ 













CHAP. IX.] EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 115 

as to afford the comfort and convenience of a regular letter-box. Mary 
was undeniably implicated in the plot, which was so clumsily carried 
on that fourteen of the parties concerned were executed before she even 
knew that the scheme had been detected. She was taking an airing on 
a palfrey,—one of those whose wretched trappings had made her think 
“ caparisons are indeed odious,” as she thought of her riding excursions 
in her dear France,—when a messenger from the queen turned her horse’s 
head towards Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire. Commissioners 
were instantly sent down to try her for conspiracy, and on the 25th of 
October, 1586, sentence was pronounced against her in the Star 
Chamber. 

When Elizabeth heard the decision, she affected the utmost reluc¬ 
tance to sign the warrant for Mary’s execution; and indeed this re¬ 
luctance seems to have been somewhat sincere, for she wished the death 
of her rival without any of the odium attaching to a share in an act of 
so much cruelty. The English queen would have preferred that one of 
her subjects should have anticipated the effect of a death-warrant, by 
taking the life of Mary a little in advance; but no one was base or 
brutal enough to further the obvious wishes of the female tyrant. The 
signing of the warrant was performed amid sighs and tears, before Sir 
Robert Cary, Dame Cary, and the little Carys, when some of the 
children thought they recognised tears of sincerity falling from Eliza¬ 
beth’s eyes; but Mother Cary’s chickens we must not depend upon. 
After some months of delay and duplicity, during which poor Mary 
was kept in a state of suspense more cruel than death itself, the warrant 
was signed; but Elizabeth endeavoured, as far as possible, to throw the 
blame on her ministers. This only aggravates her conduct, for her 
being ashamed of it, shows she was aware of its enormity, and that she 
did not consider herself to be merely performing an act of straight¬ 
forward duty, though a painful one, in consigning to an ignominious 
death her sister sovereign. Mary was executed on the 7th of February, 
1587, in the forty-fifth year of her age; and it is said that when the 
executioner held up her head by its auburn locks, they came off in his 
hand, and the grey stubble underneath proved too plainly that Mary had 
lived for many years a secret adherent to wig principles 




116 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK T. 


CHAPTER THE TENTH 

ELIZABETH (CONCLUDED). 

A few weeks had elapsed after the execution of poor Mary, when an 
ambassador, to palaver over the unfortunate queen’s only son, James, 
was sent to Scotland by Elizabeth. When the lad first heard the news 
he began to roar like a calf, and quiver like an arrow. He vowed 
vengeance, in a voice of soprano shrillness, and the homely figure of a 
storm in a slop-basin was faithfully realised. 

The ambassador let him have his cry completely out, and then 
drawing himself up with an air of some dignity, observed, “ When you 
have left off roaring, and can hear me speak, I will tell you the rights 
of it,” “ Nobody has any right to murder my mamma,” was the reply of 
the boy, who again opened the sluices of his grief, and allowed the tears 
to irrigate his face with a couple of meandering rivulets. At length 
silence being obtained, the ambassador declared that the amputation of 
Mary’s head was accidental as far as Elizabeth was concerned ; but, 
“ axe-i-dental you mean,” was the bitter reply of her sobbing offspring. 
The messenger, nevertheless, persisted that the Queen of England 
meant nothing by signing the death-warrant; that, in fact, she had 
been “ only in fun and as he wound up with the offer of an increased 
pension to James, the heartless brat dried his eyes, with the observa¬ 
tion, that “ What’s done can’t be undone,” and pocketed a quarter in 
advance of his enlarged income. That Elizabeth had really been deter¬ 
mined upon Mary’s death, is a point upon which our sagacious readers 
will require no enlightenment; for to them the character of the royal 
catamountain—we use the Johnsonian word, in preference to the old, 
familiar term of catamaran—wall be clear, from the gallons of midnight 
oil which we have bestowed upon it. How to get rid of Mary w r as, in 
fact, a subject of frequent deliberation between the English queen and 
her creatures—pretty creatures they were—among whom Leicester and 
Walsingham stood prominent. Leicester had proposed poison, while 
Elizabeth suggested assassination; but the dagger and bowl, the emblems 
of legitimate tragedy, were both laid aside for the farce of a trial. When 
the sanguinary business was done, the chief actors in it threw the blame 
upon the subordinates, and poor Mr. Secretary Davison was declared by 
Elizabeth to have been the sole cause of the execution of the Scottish 
queen, because he had assisted in executing the deed that consigned 
her to the scaffold. When Davison was accused of the act, he w T ent 
about exclaiming, “I! Well, that is the coolest!—Ton my word! 
What next? ” But he soon found what was next, for he was committed 
to prison, and fined ten thousand pounds, merely to give colour to the 
accusation. When confidentially apprised of the cause of his detention, 





CHAP. X.J PHILIP PBEIaRES TO INVADE ENGLAND. 117 

he went into hysterics at the half-ridiculous, half-melancholy, idea of his 
being impounded to give i*>lour to a charge which was altogether false ; 
and “ It only just cleans me out!—ruins me, by Jove ! ” was the touch¬ 
ing remark he made as he paid the entire fine imposed upon him, and 
quitted the prison. 

Philip of Spain was now becoming desirous of an attack upon 
England, without having any definite views, beyond a desire for 
mischief, which was inherent in his character. He had got together a 
very formidable fleet, and Elizabeth taking alarm, tried all sorts of plans 
to check his warlike purpose. One of the expedients of her ministers 
—and it was not a bad one—was to throw discredit on a quantity of 
Philip’s bills, in the hope of his finding a difficulty in getting them 
discounted. Sir Francis Drake was despatched to Cadiz with a fleet 
of thirty sail, and Elizabeth having on his departure said to him, 
affectionately, “Go, and do your best, Drake—there’s a duck,” he dashed 
into Cadiz Bay, knocked down four castles, sunk a hundred ships— 
forecastles included—and going home by the Tagus, took a large man- 
of-war from under the very nose of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and 
then made him a polite obeisance from the bow of the vessel. 

Philip did not relax in his preparations for invading England, and he 
got together a very numerous fleet, by hiring vessels wherever he could, 
and sending his emissaries to engage a whole squadron at a time, like 
an individual, who, jumping into the first cab on a stand, desires the 
whole rank to follow him. The Armada—for such it was called— 
became, of course, rather numerous than select; but there is no doubt 
that if its quality was queer, its quantity was most respectable. 

The naval service of England had been so shabbily provided for, that 
the British fleet did not exceed thirty-six sail of the line ; though by-the- 
bye, as the authorities have just told us that Drake took or demolished 
one hundred ships at Cadiz, there seems a slight error in figures, 
which will occasionally happen in the best regulated histories. As it 
w r as not known where the enemy was to land, the High Admiral, Lord 
Howard of Effingham, was obliged to exclaim—“ Now, gentlemen, 
spread yourselves, spread yourselves !” as he ordered Drake, Hawkins, 
and Frobisher, to the command of their respective detachments. The 
gallant Drake took up his station at Ushant, as if he would have said 
“ You shan’t,” to any foe who might have come to that point to effect 
a landing. Hawkins cruised near the Scilly Islands to look out, as he 
said, for the silly fellows who should come in his wav; and Lord Henry 
Seymour cruised along the Flanders coast, while other captains vigo¬ 
rously scoured the Chops of the Channel. It was expected that the 
Spanish Armada would have come down the Thames, and perhaps 
amused themselves with an excursion to Bosherville, which was strongly 
fortified, as well as all the places on the river. The Roshervillians 
threw themselves into the arms of their resident baron; and the 
peaceful inhabitants of Sheerness prepared to fight, out of sheer neces¬ 
sity Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in eagerness to 




118 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


repel the invader from their shores; and the gallant fellows living near 
the Tower, declared in their blunt hut expressive language, that “ though 
the foe might pass a Gravesend, outlive a Blackwall, or go in safety- 
through a Greenwich, he would most assuredly never survive a 
Wapping!” 

The queen herself, having driven down in her tilbury to Tilbury 
Fort, mounted a saddle-horse, and, flushed by her nautical enthusiasm, 
she looked a very horse-marine as she cantered about upon her steed in 
the presence of her people. The Earls of Essex and Leicester having 
held her rein, she majestically bridled up, and sent forth among the 
crowd a volley of clap-traps, declaring she had come among them, as 
the song says— 

“ To conquer, to conqu-e-e-er, 

To co-o-onquer, or to boldly die-i-i-i-e.” 


At length it was determined by Philip that the Spanish Armada 
should set out; and, as Strype pleasantly tells us, “ a pretty set-out they 
made of it.” Poor Santa Cruz, the high admiral, made a most unlucky 
hit to begin with, by falling ill and dying, when his second in command, 
the Duke of Parma, followed his leader’s example, with most incon¬ 
venient rapidity. 

The chief command was given to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who 
■was “ a very good man, hut a very bad sailor,”* and knew so little of 
maritime affairs, that he is reported to have sent to a dealer in marine 
stores for an outfit. At length the Invincible Armada was ready to 
put to sea, and they succeeded in “ shoving her off,” on the ‘29th of 
May, 1588, from the Tagus. The seas, which evidently had no notion 
of being ruled by any hut Britannia, turned turbulent under the 
Spanish usurpers, and a general rising of the waves made it a toss-up 
whether Medina Sidonia and his fleet w r ould ride out the storm in 
safety. Four of the ships were actually lost, and nearly all the rest 
dispersed, and when the high admiral called upon his subordinate 
officers to he “ calm and collected,” he found that the storm had not 
allowed them to be either the one or the other. Having got his forces 
together again, as well as he could, the Spanish admiral made another 
start towards the English coast, and appeared off the Lizard Point, 
with his fleet drawn up in the form of a crescent, being seven miles 
from horn to horn, and presenting to the enemy the horns of a dilemma. 
The English were on shore at Plymouth, playing at howls on the Hoe, 
and Drake, who was getting the better of the game, declared he would 
play it out, for there was no hurry, as he could beat his companions 
first, and the Spaniards afterwards. Having, at length, taken to their 
vessels, the British watched the foe as they came rolling in their heavy, 
lumbering ships up the channel. Their guns were planted so high up 
that they shot entirely over the English vessels, and into one another, 
while their unwieldy size rendering them unmanageable, several of 

Vide George Cruikshank’s renowned etching. 


CHAP. X.] DESTRUCTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 119 

them were banged to bits by a series of frightful collisions. To add to 
the confusion, one of the vessels took fire, and was burnt, by an accident 
of the cook on board, who, it has been ingeniously suggested, was 
trying to fry some of the celebrated chops of the channel, “ which,” as 
Mrs Markham says, in her very excellent Abridgment, “ you know, my 
little dears, you have all heard talked about.” 

Another large vessel sprung her mast, another sprung a leak, a third 
burst her binnacle ; a fourth shivered her timbers, a fifth lost all her 
fore part; and the crew were driven by stern necessity into the stern; 
while on all sides, there prevailed the utmost confusion. Medina Sidonia 
retired to the back yard of one of his ships, where he sat dejected and 
alone, and after a good deal of skirmishing, in which the Spaniards got 
the worst of it at all points of the compass, the duke made the best of 
his way home again. He arrived at Santander about the end of 
September, 1588, with the mere skeleton of the force he had started 
with, and every sailor he brought back, was in himself a complete 
wreck of what he had been when he quitted his own country. Thus 
ended the grand design of invading England by means of the Spanish 
Armada, which, to say the truth, did more mischief to itself than it 
sustained at the hands of the enemy. Had a public meeting been held 
at the time to celebrate the victory, we are sure that any English 
patriot might have proposed a vote of thanks to the Armada, for the 
“ able and impartial manner in which it banged itself almost to pieces, 
with a total disregard of its own interests, and to the incalculable 
advantage of England.” 

On the 4th of September, 1588, Leicester, the queen’s favourite, 
died on his way to Kenilworth; but Elizabeth never felt the loss, for 
she had already effected a transfer of her affections to Robert Devereux, 
the young Earl of Essex. Her grief at Leicester’s death was so slight, 
that it did not prevent her from putting an execution into his house, 
sweeping off all he had, under a bill of sale, and submitting it to the 
public hammer in order to repay herself the sums she had advanced to 
him in his life-time. Essex was a mere boy, and the part of favourite 
to a disagreeable ugly old woman like “ our Bessy,” was by no means a 
sinecure. He was expected to appear at all times as the light comedian 
of the Court, and was compelled to exercise flattery and gallantry 
towards a harridan who neither justified the one nor inspired the other. 
He took the earliest opportunity of getting away from her for a short 
time, by going to sea against her express orders ; but he would have 
braved anything for a respite from the society of the royal bore, whose 
fondness had become odious to its object, though policy restrained him 
from openly saying so. On his return home, he found himself almost 
cut out of the qceen’s good graces by Sir Walter Raleigh, whose name 
we have already mentioned as that of a young adventurer. Raleigh 
was a distinguished navigator, which does not mean that he worked on 
the cuttings of a railway; but that he belonged to a very humble line, 
is a point there is not a doubt upon. His reputation rests chiefly on 


120 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


the luggage he brought with him after one of his voyages, when some 
potatoes, and a few ounces of tobacco crammed into his sac de nuit, 
were destined to hand him down to immortality. The most popular 
vegetable the world ever saw, has put Raleigh into everybody’s mouth ; 
and when we see the cloud rising from the cigar, our imagination may 
trace, in the “ smoke that so gracefully curls,” the name of one whose 
renown cannot be whiffed away into the regions of oblivion. 

The jealousy of Essex caused Raleigh to be sent into Ireland, where 
he remained for years ; and his long sojourn may account for the hold 
that the potato had taken upon the affections of the Irish people. 

His rival being thus summarily got rid of, Essex was left to make 
his way with the “ virgin queen,” who was now verging on old age, and 
treated her young favourite less as a subject than a son; for she had 
come to that time of life when anything she could show in the shape of 
fondness deserved the epithet of motherly. The boy was a fine one of 
his age, being brave and good-looking; but Burleigh and other wise 
counsellors, seeing that Essex made a fool of the queen, or rather, that 
she made a fool of herself by her partiality for him, took a dislike to the 
stripling. On one occasion, old Elizabeth, getting kittenish and playful, 
boxed the boy’s ear, which tingled with the pain—for her hand had 
become bony from age—when he laid his hand upon his sword, and was 
thrown into disgrace, like a child who has been guilty of naughtiness. 
He was soon recalled, and promising that he would “ never do so any 
more,” he rapidly resumed his place in the favour of the royal dotard. 

The death of Burleigh, on the 4th of August, 1598, for whom the 
hurly-burly of politics had been too much, left the entire field to Essex, 
and he made the most of it, by getting the appointment of Lord Lieu¬ 
tenant of Ireland; from which he derived the double advantage of 
advancing his own views and getting away from Elizabeth. He took 
with him a considerable force, which he somehow or other frittered away 
without doing any good whatever; and after losing several of his soldiers 
by marching them completely off their legs, he determined that he must 
have “ a truce to such an unpleasant sort of thing,” and entered at once 
into a truce with the enemy. Elizabeth, who had calculated upon his 
settling the Irish question at the point of the sword, was disgusted at 
his failure, and desired him not to come home till he had subjected his 
honour to thorough repair, and taken all the stains out of his character. 
As he had no relish for the task imposed upon him, he suddenly quitted 
his post, and hastening to England, arrived at the palace covered with 
mud and dirt, for he had made a regular steeple-cliase of the latter 
part of his journey. Without going home to change his boots, he rushed 
into the presence-chamber before the queen was up, and, without asking 
any questions, he pushed his way to her dressing-room. He found her 
completely en deshabille , and started back at finding her hair on a block 
before her, instead of on her head, for she had got her wig in hand, and 
was trying to turn and twist it into a becoming form, by means of 
powder, pomatum, tongs, combs, and curl-papers. Startled by his 


CHAP. X.] 


EXECUTION OF ESSEX. 


121 


sudden appearance, slie hastened to put herself to rights as well as she 
could, and was angry at the intrusion ; but as he fell at her feet, she 
contrived to cover the baldness of her head, and then received him 
more affably. He had no sooner gone than she began to reflect upon 
his presumption in having thus taken her unawares; and when he 
returned, after going home to dress, she would have nothing to say to 
him. He was desired to stay at home, and consider himself a prisoner 
in his own house ; but as the old crone had allowed so many former 
familiarities, he was quite unprepared for the game of propriety she 
was now practising. He went home and took to his bed, for it 
made him perfectly sick to witness the sudden prudery of the 
queen, who, during his illness sent him a daily basin of broth from her 
own table. She ordered eight eminent physicians to consult on his 
case ; but this calling in of a powerful medical force looks very much 
as if she had been disposed to get rid of him, and preferred physic to 
law for once, as a method of destruction. In spite of his eight doctors 
Essex got better, and sent submissive messages, to which Elizabeth 
turned a deaf ear; and Essex, by attributing her deafness to age, 
irritated her beyond expression. He was told that he would find her 
unbending; when he at once replied that he had found her bent nearly 
double, when he last had the honour of seeing her, and he was glad to 
hear that royalty was once more beginning to look up in England, by 
taking its proper position. These remarks irritated Elizabeth beyond 
expression; and having brought him before the privy council, she caused 
a sentence of banishment to be inflicted upon him, which he sarcasti¬ 
cally declared was agreeable to him, as it would keep from him the 
sight of Elizabeth, whom he now denominated his “ old queene.” 
Anxious to try the effect of intimidation upon the nervous septuage 
narian who now sat upon the throne, he entered into a conspiracy with 
Scotland ; but it was soon found out, and, rushing with desperate fury 
into the streets, he tried to raise a mob by addressing inflammatory 
speeches to the populace. The citizens looked at him and listened to 
him, but shaking their heads, passed on, when he soon found out that 
a solo movement unsupported by any concerted piece, rendered him 
truly ridiculous. At length he was hurried off to the Tower, and 
having been tried, he was condemned to die, though he fully expected 
the palsied old creature who held the sceptre in her tremulous hand, 
would, in a love-sick mood, decree his pardon 

It is said that in “ happier days,” when Essex had been in the 
habit of striking “the light, the light, the light guitar,” to the tin-like 
sound of Elizabeth’s voice, she had given him a ring, telling him if 
ever he fell into disgrace, the return of that ring would obtain his 
pardon. Elizabeth was from day to day listening to every knock, 
expecting the identical ring, but it never came, and on the 25tli of 
February, 1601, he was actually beheaded. Elizabeth never held up her 
head again ; but indeed, as she had long contracted a stoop from debility 
and old age, there is nothing astonishing in the fact we have mentioned 


122 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V. 


The spectacle of an old woman pining in love after a mere boy, was 
revolting enough ; but the fact is made doubly disgusting by the recol¬ 
lection that she had herself caused the death of the object of her 
disreputable dotage. 

Some time after the execution of Essex, the Countess of Nottingham 
was taken ill, and sending for Elizabeth confessed that the favourite 
had given the ring before his death to be delivered to the queen, but 
that it had been kept back for party purposes. The sovereign, who 
was shaking in every limb from ambiguity and agitation, flew at the 
Countess of Nottingham in her bed, seized her by the shoulder, and 
administered the most violent cuffs that a female of seventy is capable 
of bestowing on one who has offended her. “ Take that—and that— 
and that—and that—and that !”■— was the cry of the queen, as she 
suited the action to the word in every instance. The exertion was too 
much for the tottering fabric of human frailty, who threw herself on 
the floor when she got to her own room, and refusing to go to bed, 
rolled about for ten days on a pile of cushions. Being asked to name 
her successor, she is said by some to have specified James ; while 
others maintain that she said nothing. When she was too exhausted 
to oppose her attendants, they got her into bed, and on the 24th of 
March, 1603, she died in the seventieth year of her age, and forty- 
fifth of her reign. 

Many people have a very natural objection to written characters, 
but we feel compelled to give a written character of Queen Elizabeth; 
and we are sorry to remark, that we can say very little that will be 
thought complimentary. In person she was bony, coarse, muscular and 
masculine. Her hair was red, but this she inherited from her father 
Henry, and thus her red hair has been said, by that mountebank, Strype, 
to have been he-red-hair-tary at that time in the royal family. She 
endeavoured, by the aid of dress, to make up for the unkindness of 
Nature ; and she surrounded herself with a quantity of hoops, which, 
as her figure was rather tub-like, may be considered appropriate. She 
never gave away her old clothes, and no less than three thousand dresses 
were found at her death, the bodies of which, it is said, would have 
covered half London at its then size, while the skirts would have 
covered all the outskirts. Her portrait is always drawn with an enor 
mous ruff round her neck, which she adopted, it is believed, to hide the 
roughness of her chin, which showed Nature to be her enemy, for it had 
bearded her frightfully. 

She was exceedingly fond of visiting the houses of the nobility ; but 
she usually ruined all whom she honoured in this way, by the expense 
they were put to in entertaining her. Lord Leicester, who had her 
staying with him at Kenilworth, for a few days, nearly ruined himself 
in bears, of which he took in a great quantity to bait for the amuse¬ 
ment of his sovereign. 

In disposition, manners, and appearance, there was nothing feminine 
or graceful about Elizabeth; but Hume, who seems very fond of her, 


CHAP. X.] CHARACTER OF ELIZABETH. 123 

tells us, that in weighing her, one ought to sink the female and think 
only of the sovereign. We cannot, however, understand a person 
being at the same time a good queen and a bad woman, unless the 
woman happens to be somebody beside herself, when she is obviously 
unfit to be trusted with the responsibility of government. Elizabeth 
had a certain amount of talent; “for she had,” says Hume, “both 
temper and capacity;” but capacity seems to have belonged rather to 
the bony bulkiness of her unfeminine form, than to the extent of her 
intellect. 

Her private character was exceedingly disreputable; and her amorous 
propensities, which seemed rather to increase with her old age, rendered 
her disgusting to her contemporaries, as well as ridiculous in the 
eyes of posterity. She was constantly in love with some stripling 
about the Court, who when he became mi pen passe, was thrown aside 
for some more juvenile admirer. 

There can be no doubt that the admirable character of Mrs. Skeleton, 
if we may be allowed an irreverent allusion to fiction amid the awful 
solemnities of fact, is to be attributed to the extensive historical 
research of Mr. Dickens, and his intimate acquaintance with the period 
of the reign of Elizabeth. It may be admitted that she governed 
with considerable firmness ; but the praise, such as it is, of “ coming 
it exceedingly strong,” is, after all, a most questionable compliment. 

Several of the greatest names in science and literature, shed a 
glory on Elizabeth’s reign; but the most magnificent sunshine, by 
falling on a mean object, does not make the object itself in reality more 
respectable. Bacon, Shakspeare, Spenser, and others, are said to have 
flourished at the time; but we have examined their autographs with 
peculiar care, and have seen no symptoms of flourishing about any one 
of them. To say they all wrote at the period, would be true; but to 
say they flourished is an exaggeration to which we will not lend our¬ 
selves. 

The reign of Elizabeth was, at least, considerably in advance of our 
own time in one respect, for it is remarkable for the passing of a Poor 
Law which, unlike that of the present day, was founded on the principles 
of humanity. This blot, however, will, we trust, be removed in time 
for a sixth—though not quite quickly enough for a second, third, fourth, 
or fifth—edition of this work; for the Spirit of the Times has doomed 
the Poor Law to perdition. 

Theatres first came into vogue in Elizabeth’s reign ; and it is a fact 
at which our sober reverence for the Swan of Avon takes considerable 
alarm, that that ever-to-be-lamented bird was in the habit of exercising 
his quills in the neighbourhood of the New Cut, at a concern called the 
Globe, where the prices were only twopence to the pit, and one penny 
in the gallery. The critics sat on the stage, and were furnished with 
pipes and tobacco—a gentle intimation to them to “ draw it mild ” in 
their notices of the performances. It is possible, that through the 
fumes of the tobacco they got a bird’s-eye view of the stage, which was 


124 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK V 


favourable to their performance of their critical duties. The audience 
used to read, play at cards, smoke, and drink, before the performance 
began; and perhaps, if the piece happened to be dull, they relieved it 
by some of those pastimes even during its progress. 

Smoking, which has since reached such universality that every man 
one meets is a chimney, and every boy a flue, is known to have been 
introduced by Baleigh, who, fearing that his friends would rally him on 
the propensity, used to indulge it in secret. One day some smoke was 
seen to issue from his apartment, and the people about him fearing he 
was on fire, inundated him with buckets of water that put him out very 
seriously, and determined him in future not to smoke the pipe of privacy. 
The mode of living was not very luxurious in Elizabeth’s reign, for a 
glass of ale and a slice of bread formed the ordinary breakfast, while 
brawn was an article of general consumption; and, as Elizabeth was very 
fond of it, her great brawny arms are easily accounted for. 

An attempt has been made to attribute various graces and accom¬ 
plishments to Elizabeth, which, even after attempting to enlarge our 
credulity, and stir up our organ of veneration to its fullest extent, we 
are unable to give her credit for It is said that she played, sang, and 
danced tolerably well, though her figure seems to give very weighty 
testimony against her probable possession of the last of these accom¬ 
plishments. 

She admired dancing among her courtiers, and she is said to have 
promoted Hatton for his terpsichorean efforts, she having once seen him 
practising his steps, when she declared that he held himself so well in 
the first position, that she would elevate him to the first position as soon 
as possible. Elizabeth, though profuse in her own indulgences, was 
stingy in the extreme to others, and her accumulation of old clothes 
proves a tenacity of bad habits, and a shabbiness towards her femme de 
chambre, that are on a par with the other despicable points in her 
character. 


4 


BOOK VI. 


FROM THE PERIOD OF THE ACCESSION OF JAMES 
RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. 


I. TO niE 


CHAPTER THE FIRST. 

JAMES THE FIRST. 




EiOl * 

——— , 

m 

rjJlj 

1 

L,_1 


he moment the queen 
died, Cecil and the other 
Lords of the Council 
sneaked out through the 
back garden gate of the 
Palace at Richmond at 
three o’clock in the 
morning on the 24th of 
March, 1603, and posted 
for Scotland to James, 
whom they hailed as 
the brightest Jem that 
had ever adorned the 
throne. Cecil, having? 
long been in correspond¬ 
ence with the Scotch 
king, had only been 
waiting to see which 
way the cat jumped, or, 
in other words, for the 
death of the queen, and 
she had lived so long 

that he began to think 

the royal cat had nine 
lives, which delayed her 

final jump much longer than her minister desired. 

Before posting to Scotland, the Lords of the Council had stuck up 
several posters about London, proclaiming James I. amid those shouts 
wdiich “ the boys ” are ever ready to lend to any purpose for which a 

mob has been got together. The Scotch king was of course glad to 

exchange the miserable cane-bottomed throne of his own country for the 

VOL. II. K 


























































126 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


comfortably cushioned seat of English royalty ; but he was so wretchedly 
poor that he could not even start for his new kingdom till it had yielded 
him enough to pay his passage thither. He tried hard to get possession 
of the crown jewels for his wife, but the Council wou^d not trust him with 
the precious treasures. On his way to his new dominions he was received 
with that enthusiasm which a British mob has always on hand for any 
new object; but he did not increase in favour upon being seen; for if a 
good countenance is a letter of recommendation, James carried in his 
face a few lines that said very little in his favour. His legs were too 
weak for his body, his eyes too large for their sockets, and his tongue 
was too big for his mouth; so that his knees knocked without making a 
hit, his pupils could not be restrained by the lash, while his lingual 
excrescence caused so many a slip between the cup and the lip, that his 
aspect was awkward and disagreeable 



James I. on his way to England. 



















































































CHAP. 1.1 JAMES THE FIRSTS JOURNEY TO LONDON. 1*27 

During his journey to London he rode on horseback, but he was 
such a bungling equestrian that he was thrown by a sagacious animal 
intent on having his fling at the expense of the sovereign. Besides being 
ungainly in his person, he did not set it off to the best advantage, foi 
he was exceedingly dirty; and thus he appeared to he looking black at 
everybody, for his face was encrusted in dust, and though his prede 
cessor, Elizabeth, was very objectionable, he could not boast of coming 
to the throne with clean hands. Power was such a new toy to him that 
he could not use it in moderation, and he made knights at the rate of 
fifty a day, which caused Bacon so far to forget himself as to utter the 
silly sarcasm, that there would be a surfeit of Sirs, if James proceeded in 
the manner in which he was beginning. 

Conspiracies were soon formed against a monarch so weak, and the 
ambitious Raleigh, who had been in his youth a mere street adventurer, 
thought he could vault over official posts as easily as he had vaulted 
over those in the public thoroughfares. His designs being detected, he 
was deprived of some of the offices he possessed, and among others his 
monopoly of licensing taverns, and retailing wines, for which his know¬ 
ledge of the tobacco business had well fitted him. He plotted with 
Grey, a Puritan, Markham, a Papist, and Cobham, a Nothingarian, to 
seize the person of the king; but the tables were turned upon them by 
the seizure of themselves and their committal to the Tower. Grey, 
Cobham, and Markham were condemned to die; but just as they had 
laid their heads on the block, they were axed if they would rather 
live, and having answered in the affirmative, they were committed to the 
Tower with Raleigh for the remainder of their lives. 

The Puritans having complained of ecclesiastical abuses, James 
ordered a meeting at Hampton Court between the bishops and their 
opponents, to talk over their differences. The bishops were allowed 
the first innings, and they continued running on for several hours, when 
James took the matter up on the same side, and the Puritans were not 
allowed to utter a word. After the king had talked himself out of 
breath, and his hearers out of patience, Doctor Reynolds was permitted 
to take a turn on behalf of the Puritans; but he was insulted, inter¬ 
rupted, and regularly coughed down before he had spoken twenty words. 
The king then exclaimed, “ Well, Doctor, is that all you have to say ?” 
Upon which the Doctor, being abashed by the unfairness shown towards 
him, admitted that he was unwilling to proceed. James boasted that 
he had silenced the Puritans ; and so he had, but it was by intimidation 
and bluster alone that he had succeeded in doing so 

Encouraged by his triumph over a few trembling sectarians, the king 
called Parliament together, expecting to overcome that body; but he 
found he had to deal with some very awkward customers. They ques¬ 
tioned his rights, refused his salary, and turned coldly from a proposition 
to unite England with Scotland, which they resisted with a sneering 
assertion that oil and vinegar would never agree. Doubting whether he 

k 2 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


128 


[book VI 


would get much good out of Parliament in the temper in which he 
found it, he abruptly closed the session. 

The Catholics, who were subjected to much persecution, became very 
angry under it, and a gentleman of the name of Catesby, who had 
changed his opinions some three or four times, stuck to the last set 
with such fury, that he resolved to assist them at all hazards. His 
principles had been a mere matter of toss up, but he had settled down 
into a Papist at last; and conceiving the idea of destroying King, 
Lords, and Commons, at a blow, he expressed himself on the subject 
avec explosion , as the French dramatists have it, to Thomas Winter, a 
gentleman of Worcestershire, who having been worsted in all his 
prospects, cottoned at once to the scheme. The Catholics had solicited 
the mediation of the King of Spain, and Winter passed over to the 
Netherlands to hear how matters were going on, when he made himself 
acquainted at Ostend with a fellow named Guido Fawkes, who has been 
equally misinterpreted by “the boys ” and the historians. It has been 
usual to describe him as a low mercenary who got his name of Fawkes 
or Forks, from his way of brutally demanding everybody to fork out; 
but however etymology may encourage such an interpretation of his 
name, we must denounce it as a cruel libel on his character.* The 
eagerness of the juvenile mind to adopt any malicious absurdity that is 
proposed to it, has been exhibited in the boyish extravagance of making 
Guido Fawkes a man of straw, though there is little doubt that he was 
a man of substance, and not the mere Will o’ the Wisp that constitutes 
his portrait as we see him drawn on stone along the paved streets of the 
metropolis. Guido, whose pretended ugliness has made his abbreviated 
name of Guy synonymous with a frightful object, was a gentleman, 
though a fanatic, and it is not true that had Fawkes been invited to 
dinner, it would have been necessary to look after the spoons as well as 
the Fawkes with unusual vigilance. Catesby invited Winter and Guido 
to his lodgings, where they were met by Thomas Percy, a distant 
relation of the Earl of Northumberland, and by John Wright, an 
obstinate fellow, who would never own himself wrong. Grog and cigars 
—the latter being a novelty recently imported by Raleigh—were 
liberally provided, when Catesby suggested that before business could 
be regularly gone into, an oath of secresy must be administered. With 
a melodramatic desire to give the affidavit all the advantages of appro¬ 
priate scenery, it was suggested that a lone house in the fields beyond 
Clement’s Inn should be the spot wdiere the oath should be administered. 

In the course of a few days the affidavit had been drawn, perused, 
settled, and engrossed, when the parties met at the place appointed, 
and were all sworn in, with due formality. Catesby, acting as a sort of 
chairman, then proceeded to explain to the meeting his views. He 
commenced rather in the shape of innuendos, by hinting that he wished 

* Some monster or punster in human form, declares he was called Fawkes or Forks, 
oecause lie was ready to cou-knive in anything sanguinary. The atrocity of this assertion 
needs no comment. 


CHAP. I.J 


GUNPOWDEE, PLOT 


129 


the Parliament further, and he thought he knew a mode of despatching 
all the Members at once, by a special train. As his associates did not 
take the hint immediately, he proceeded to expatiate on the expediency 
of a regular blow up, and getting rid of the whole Parliament “ slap 
bang; ” accompanying his observation by dealing on the deal table a 
tremendous thump, that made a noise resembling the explosion of gun¬ 
powder. The action seemed to strike a light in the eyes of all present, 
and by putting this and that together, they perceived that Catesby’s 
intention was to act the last scene of the Miller and his Men, beneath 
the walls of Parliament. Percy, who was a gentleman pensioner— 
though he seems to have been rather more of the pensioner than the 
gentleman—had an opportunity of hanging about the Court, and 
watching the movements of his intended victims. The first care of the 
conspirators was to take a house in the neighbourhood ; hut no one of 
the lot, except Percy, had sufficient credit to justify his acceptance as a 
tenant, by any prudent landlord. At length they got hold of a dwelling 
by the water side, which was occupied by one Ferris—probably a ferry¬ 
man—who, for a small consideration, vacated the premises in Percy’s 
favour. The back of the house abutted—by means of a water-butt— 
on the Parliamentary party wall, and they began picking a hole in the 
wall as soon as they obtained possession. At every move they renewed 
their oath of secresy, as if they were mutually better known than 
trusted among themselves, and a secret which, even in ordinarily honest 
hands, is tolerably sure to get wind, was very soon known to twenty 
people, at least, through the leakiness of one or more of the conspirators. 

Emboldened by their success, they took a coal shed, on the Lambeth 
side of the river, where one of them, under pretence of going into the 
potato business, accumulated as large a quantity of coals, coke, and wood, 
as he could with the small means upon which he was enabled to 
speculate. The chief scene of their operations w^as, of course, the 
house at Westminster, where they laid in a large supply of hard boiled 
eggs ; “ the better,” says Strype, “ to be enabled to hatch their scheme, 
and to avoid suspicion, by not being compelled to send out for food.” 
The wall offering considerable resistance to their projects it was found 
advisable to send for the keeper of the potato shed, over the way, to 
aid in the work, and young Wright, a brother of the same Wright that 
never would admit himself to be wrong, was admitted to a partnership 
in the secret. 

Vainly did these ninny-hammers go hammering on at the walls of 
Parliament, which stuck together in a manner very characteristic of 
bricks, and no impression seemed to be made upon them; while the 
mine from Lambeth, by means of which they intended under-mining 
the British Constitution, made scarcely any progress at all. One 
morning, in the midst of their labours, they were startled by a rumbling 
noise over head, when Guido Fawkes, who acted as sentinel, ran to 
ascertain the cause of the alarming sound. It seemed that one Bright, 
who carried on the coal business in a cellar immediately below the 


130 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK VI 


Parliament, was clearing out his stock, at “ an alarming sacrifice,*' with 
the intention of moving his business to some more fashionable neigh¬ 
bourhood. Perhaps he was a bad tenant, and being on the eve of 
ejection, removed his coals in revenge for having got the sack from his 
landlord ; but, at all events, he had a cart into which he was shooting 
the Wall’s End, though he may have had no intention of shooting the 
moon at the expense of his creditors. 

Percy, knowing the cellar must be vacant went to look at it, and 
pronounced it the very thing; though it might, naturally, have excited 
some surprise that one who had hitherto been considered a man of ton 
should become a man of chaldrons and hundred weights, by going into 
the coal business, on a scale somewhat limited. A tenancy was never¬ 
theless effected, and several barrels of gunpowder were carried into the 
vault, under the pretence that the small-beer and bloater business was 
about to be commenced by the new lessee, in a style of unusual 
liberalitv. 

Guy Fawkes was despatched to Flanders, to obtain adherents to the 
scheme, but he got no further than to obtain a promise from Owen that 
he would speak to Stanley, which seems to have been merely equivalent 
to an extension of the secret, without any beneficial result to the con¬ 
spirators. On the return of Guido, he found that while he had been 
extending the secret abroad, his colleagues had been blabbing—of 
course confidentially—at home, so that the secret was becoming a good 
deal like an “ aside ” in a melo-drama, which comes to the ears of every 
one but the person most interested in being made acquainted with its 
purport. 

Every arrangement was now made for blowing up the Parliament 
sky-high, when a prorogation, until the fifth of November, was suddenly 
announced, and the conspirators began to fear that the secret, which 
had experienced as many extensions as a railway line, had found its 
way, by some disagreeable deviation, to the ears of the intended victims. 
The expense of the conspiracy had hitherto been borne by Catesby, who 
paid for all the hard-boiled eggs, the rent of the coal-cellar, with the 
wood and the coals that had been had in; for, the rest being soldiers of 
fortune, which means that they were soldiers of no fortune at all, 
would not have got credit for even the bull’s-eye lanthorn, which has 
since cut such a conspicuous figure in the history of the period. 
Catesby had however spent so much in new-laid eggs and new-laid 
gunpowder—for he had to support a numerous train—that he was 
obliged to take in fresh capital, and Sir Everard Digby, with Francis 
Tresliam, were admitted as shareholders in the dangerous secret 
Digby put down fifteen hundred pounds on the allotment of a slice 
of the mystery to himself, and Francis Tresliam, who did not much 
like the speculation, though he consented to enter into it, gave his 
cheque for two thousand pounds, saying that he considered the money 
thrown away as completely as if he had wasted it in horse-chestnuts, 
Venetian grog, or raspberry vinegar His givings were accompanied by 


CHAP. I.] 


GUNPOWDEK PLOT. 


ldl 


fearful misgivings, and he never expected to see the hour when lie 
should have the honour of being sent up to posterity on the wings of a 
barrel of gunpowder. 

The fifth of November was the day that the conspirators had agreed 
to immortalize, for the benefit of future dealers in squibs, crackers, 
Catharine-wlieels, and all the other “wheels within wheels,” that are so 
completely in character with this complicated project. They used to 
take blows on the river preliminary to the great blow they had in their 
eye, and a house at Erith was their frequent place of rendezvous 
They also held consultations at White Webbs—not Webb’s the White 
Bear—near Enfield, and here they arranged that Guido Fawkes, after 
putting matters in train, should set fire to it, by a slow burning match, 
which would give him time to escape, though he often said, half 
jestingly, that to find his match would be exceedingly difficult. As the 
scheme drew near its intended execution, the “ secret ” had become so 
fearfully divided that every one who possessed a share of it had some 
friend or other he wanted to save; and, if each had been allowed to 
withdraw his man, the residue of the Parliament would scarcely have 
been w r orth the powder and shot it had been determined to devote to 
them. Tresham, for example, was seized with a sudden fit of benevo¬ 
lence towards old Lord Monteagle; while Kay, the seedy and needy 
gentleman in charge of the house at Lambeth, wanted to save Lord 
Mordaunt, who had cashed for poor K. an I.O.U., when the money was 
of great use to him. Catesby, who was not so tender-hearted, declared 
it was all very well, but if they were to go on saving and excepting one 
after the other, there could be no explosion at all, unless they could 
procure some of that celebrated discriminating gunpowder, which blows 
up all the villains, in the last scene of a melo-drama, and spares the 
virtuous characters. He insisted, therefore, on the necessity of leaving 
the result to a toss-up, as at a game of heads and tails, in which all 
would have an equal chance of winning or losing. 

Tresham, who combined the wavering of the weathercock with the 
tremulousness of the tee-to-tum, was still intent on giving a sort of 
general warning to a number of his friends, and when his blabbing was 
objected to, he declared the affair had better be put off, as he could find 
no more money to carry on the conspiracy. Catesby, Winter, and 
Fawkes objected to delay; whereupon it is supposed that Tresham not 
only ratted but let the cat out of the bag in a most unwarrantable 
manner. Lord Monteagle, who had a country box at Hoxton, was 
giving a petit souper to a few friends on the twenty-sixth of October, 
and he was just finishing the leg of a Welsh rabbit, when his page 
presented him a letter that had just been left by a tall man who had 
refused to leave his name or wait for an answer. Lord Monteagle, 
thinking it might be a bill, desired one of his guests to read it out, 
when it proved to be a letter written in the characteristic spelling of 
the period. “ I would advyse yowe, as yowe tender yower lvf, to 
devyse some excuse to shift of yower attendance at this parleament,” 


13 2 


COMIC HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


said the anonymous scribbler, which threw Monteagle into such alarm 
that he took the Hoxton ’bus, and went off to Whitehall the same 
evening to see Cecil. The king was “ hunting the fearful hare at 
Royston,” in the most hare-um scare-um style, and it was resolved that 
nothing could, would, or should be done until the return of the 
sovereign. 

Notwithstanding the letter having been delivered as early as the 
twenty-sixth of October, nothing seems to have been done to stop the 
conspiracy, for Fawkes *?ent regularly once a day to the cellar, to count 
the coals, snuff the rushlight, and do any other little odd job that the 
progress of the conspiracy might require. Cecil and Suffolk having 
laid their heads together on the subject of the letter, at last fancied 
they had found the solution of the riddle, which, for the convenience of 
the studeni, we will throw into the form of a charade, after an approved 
model. 

My first is a sort of peculiar tea; 

My second a lawn or a meadow might be; 

My whole’s a conspiracy likely to blow 

King, Commons, and Lords to a place I don’t know. 

The “ peculiar tea ” was gunpowder, the “ lawn ” or “ meadow ” was a 
plot—of grass, and the whole was the gunpowder plot, which, though it 
went off very badly at the time, caused an explosion from which the 
country has not yet quite recovered. Notwithstanding the solution of 
the mystery, no steps were taken to bring the matter to an issue, and 
Fawkes was permitted to be at large about town, paying his diurnal 
visits to the cellar without attracting the observation of any one. 
Tresham and Winter talked the matter over in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, or 
wandered amid the then romantic scenery of Whetstone Park, to consult 
on the scheme and its probable completion. The timid Tresham pro¬ 
posed flight, but his fellow conspirators, who were not so flighty, 
resolved on persevering, and the intrepid Fawkes kept up a regular 
Cellarius,* by dancing backwards and forwards about the cellar. 

The shilly-shallying of all parties with respect to the gunpowder 
conspiracy is one of the most remarkable features of the period when it 
occurred; for we find the plotters, with detection staring them in the 
face, adhering to their old haunts, while the intended victims, though 
made aware of the plot, were as tardy as possible in taking any steps to 
baffle it. Fawkes continued his visits to the cellar just as confidently 
as ever; and one would think that ultimately detection was the object 
he had in view, for he lurked about the premises with such obstinate 
perseverance that his escape was impossible. At length Suffolk, the 
Lord Chamberlain, took Monteagle down to the House the day before 
the opening of Parliament, to see that all was right, and they occupied 
themselves for several hours in looking under the seats, unpicking the 

* We may as well state, for the benefit of that posterity which this work w'ill reach 
and the Cellarius will not, that the Cellarius is a dance fashionable in the year 1847 
when this history was written. 

















































































































































































































































































































































































































CHAP. I.] 


SEIZURE OF GUY FAWKES 


133 


furniture of the throne to see if any one was concealed inside, and 
searching into every hole and corner where a conspirator was not likely 
to secrete himself. Having taken courage from the fact of there being 
no signs of danger, they determined to go down stairs into the cellar, 
under pretence of stopping up the rat-holes—for even in those early 
days rats found their way into the House—and they had no sooner 
opened the door than they saw in one corner a round substance, which 
they at first took for a beer barrel. They approached it with the inten¬ 
tion of giving it a friendly tap, when the supposed barrel rose up into 
the height of a water-butt. 

Suffolk instantly got behind Monteagle, who stood trembling with 
fear, when the phantom cask assumed the form of a “ tall, desperate 
fellow,” who proved to be Fawkes, and the Chamberlain, affecting a 
careless indifference, demanded his “ name, birth, and parentage.” 
Guido handed his card, bearing the words G. Fawkes, and announced 
himself as the servant of Mr. Percy, who carried on a trade in coals 
coke, and wood, if he could, in the immediate neighbourhood. 
“ Indeed,” said Suffolk, “your master has a tolerably large stock on 
hand, though I think there is something else screened besides the coals, 
which I see around me.” Without adding another word, he and 
Monteagle ran off, and Fawkes hastened to acquaint Percy with what 
had happened. 

Poor Guido seems to have formed a most feline and most fatal 
attachment to the place, for nothing could keep him out of the cellar, 
though he knew he was almost certain of being liawled, unceremoniously, 
over the coals, and he went back, at two in the morning, to the old 
spot, with his habitual foolhardiness. He had no sooner opened the 
door than he was seized and pinioned, without his opinion being asked, 
by a party of soldiers. Fie made one desperate effort to make light of 
the whole business, by setting fire to the train, but he had no box of 
Congreves at hand, and he observed, with bitter boldness, in continuation 
of a pun which he had made in happier days, that he had at last 
found his match and lost his Lucifer. Poor Guy Fawkes, having 
been bound hand and foot, was taken on a stretcher to Whitehall, 
having been previously searched, when his pocket was found filled with 
tinder, touch-wood, and other similar rubbish. Behind the door was 
a dark lanthorn, or bull’s-eye, that had cowed the soldiers at first 
glance, by its glazed look, but it seemed less terrible on their walking 
resolutely up to it. Fawkes was taken to the king’s bed-room, at Whitehall, 
and though his limbs were bound and helpless, he spoke with a thick, 
bold, ropy voice, that terrified all around him. His tones had become 
quite sepulchral, from remaining so long in the vault, and when asked 
his name, he scraped out from his hoarse throat the words “John 
Johnson,” which came gratingly—as if through a grating—on the ears 
of the bystanders. He announced himself as John the footman to Mr. 
Percy, and he threw himself into an attitude—which was rather cramped 
by his pinions—which he found anything but the sort of pinions that 




\u 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


[BOOK VI. 


would enable him to soar into the lofty regions of romance to which he 
had aspired. He nevertheless boldly announced his purpose, with the 
audacity of a stage villain; and with that sort of magnanimity which 
lasts, on an average, about five minutes, in the guilty breast, he refused 
to disclose the names of his accomplices. 

One of the Scotch courtiers who had a natural feeling of stinginess, 
asked how it was that Fawkes had collected so many barrels of gun¬ 
powder, when half the quantity would have done ? upon which Fawkes 
replied, that his principal had desired him to purchase enough to blow 
the Scotch back to Scotland. “ Hoot, awa, mon !” rejoined the Scot; 
“ but ken ye not that ye might have bought half the powder, and put the 
rest of the siller in your pocket?” Fawkes sternly intimated that 
though he would have blown up the Parliament, he would not defraud 
his principal. “Hoot, mon!” cried the Scotchman, who loved his 
specie under the pretence of loving his species, and who, it is probable, 
belonged to the Chambers; “ Hoot, mon!” he whined, “ dinna ye ken that 
there are times when you mun just throw your preencipal overboard? ”* 

On the 6th of November Fawkes was sent to the Tower, with 
instructions to squeeze out of him whatever could be elicited by the 
screw, which was then the usual method of scrutiny. For four days he 
would confess nothing at all; but his accomplices began to betray 
themselves by their own proceedings. Several of them fled; but 
Tresham exhibited the very height of impudence by coming down to 
the Council and asking if he could be of any use in the pursuit of the 
rebels. Nothing but the effrontery of the boots which ran after the 
stolen shoes, crying “ Stop thief!” and have never returned to this very 
hour, can be compared with the coolness of Tresham in offering to aid 
in effecting the capture of the conspirators. 

Catesby and Jack Wright cut right away to Dunchurch, Percy filled 
his purse, and Christopher Wright packed up his kit, to be in readiness 
for making off when occasion required, while Keyes made a precipitate 
bolt out of London the morning after the plot was discovered. 

Rookwood, who had ordered relays of fine horses all along the road, 
went at full gallop through Highgate, and never slackened his pace till 
he reached Turvey, in Bedfordshire, where he came tumbling almost 
topsy-turvy over the inhabitants. Arriving at Ashby, St. Legers, with 
a legerete quite worthy of the race for the St. Leger itself, he had already 
travelled eighty miles in six hours; but he nevertheless pushed along on 
his gallant steed—a magnificent dun—who always ran as if he had a 
commercial dun at his heels, to Dunchurch. Here he found Digby, 
enjoying his otium cum dig —with a hunting party round him; but the 
guests guessed what was in the wind, and fearing they might come in 
for the blow, had vanished in the night-time. When Digby sat down to 
breakfast the next day, his circle of friends had dwindled to a triangle, 
consisting of Catesby, Percy, and Rookwood, who, with their host, now 
become almost a host in himself, took speedily to horse, and rode a 


CHAP. I.J 


CAPTURE OF THE CONSPIRATORS. 


135 

regular steeple-cliase to the borders of Staffordshire. Here they arrived 
on the night of November the 7th, at Holbeach, where they took pos¬ 
session of a house ; but by this time Sir Richard Walsh, the sheriff of 



Flight of Rookwood. 

Worcester, who had got writs out against them all, was close upon them 
with his officers. 

In the morning their landlord, one Littleton, having been let into 
their secret, let himself out of his bed-room window through fear, and 
Digby decamped under the pretence of going to buy some eggs to suck 
for breakfast, as well as to look for some succour. Digby had hardly 
shut the street door when its bang was echoed by a bang up stairs, 
occasioned by Catesby, Percy, and Rookwood having endeavoured to 
dry some gunpowder in a frying pan over the fire. Catesby was burnt 
and blackened, besides being blown up for having been the chief cause 
of the accident; and shortly afterwards, to add to their misfortunes, the 
sheriff, with the posse comitcitus, surrounded the dwelling. The con¬ 
spirators endeavoured to parry with their swords the bullets of their 
assailants, but this was a hopeless job, and keeping up their spirits as 
well as they could, they exclaimed at every shot fired on the side of 
the king, “ Here comes another dose of James’s powder ” 












































































136 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 

Catesby, addressing Thomas Winter, roared out, “Now then, stand 
by me, Tom! ” and Winter, suddenly taking a spring to liis friend’s 
side, they were both shot by one musket. Their attendants, not being 
able to get the bullet out, issued a bullet-in to say they were both dead, 
and the brothers Wright were not long left to bewail the fate of their 
accomplices. Percy, who had persevered to the last, got a wound which 
wound him up, and Rookwood had received such a home-thrust in the 
stomach from a rusty pike, that the pike rust sadly disagreed with him. 
Digby, whose feelings had run away with him, was overtaken, caught, 
and made fast, because he had been too slow, while Keyes came to a dead¬ 
lock, and the prisoners being all brought to London, were lodged in the 
Tower. 

Tresham, who had never left town, but was strutting about with all 
the easy confidence of a man with “ nothing out against him,” was 
suddenly nabbed, in spite of his remonstrances, conveyed in exclamations 
of “What have I done?” “La! bless me! there must be some 
mistake !” and other appeals of an ejaculatory but useless character. 

Poor Guido Fawkes was examined by Popham, Coke, and Wood, 
whose names may now for the first time be noticed as appropriate to the 
business they were intrusted with. Popham is surely emblematical of 
the series of pops, bangs, and explosions that would have ensued from 
the Gunpowder Plot; while Coke and Wood are obviously symbolical of 
the combustibles required for fuel. In vain did these sagacious persons 
attempt to get anything from Guido, who said “ he belonged to the 
Fawkes and not to the spoons, who might perhaps be made to convict 
themselves by cross-questioning.” Popham popped questions in abun¬ 
dance ; Coke tried to coax out the truth; and Wood, if he could, would 
have got at the facts; but neither threats nor promises could prevent 
Fawkes from showing his metal. 

Posterity, in altering his name to Guy Fox, has happily hit upon and 
appropriately expressed the cunning of his character. He confessed 
his own share in the business readily enough, but resolutely refused to 
betray his associates. “ I will not acknowledge that Percy is in the 
plot,” he cried; which reminds us of an intimation made by a gentleman 
just arrested, to his surrounding friends, that “ he did not wish the 
bailiff pumped upon.” A nod is as good as a wink in certain cases ; and 
like winking the sheriff’s officer was submitted to a course of hydro 
patliic treatment. In the same manner the declaration of Fawkes that 
“ Percy had nothing to do with it—oh dear no, nothing at all! ” was 
quite enough to put the authorities on the right scent had any such 
guidance been required. 

Poor Fawkes was so fearfully damaged by the torture he had under¬ 
gone, that his handwriting was entirely spoiled; and specimens of Ins 
mode of signing his name after the torture, contrasted with the copy 
of his autograph before the cruel infliction, present the reverse of the 
result which writing-masters of our day boast of producing by their six 
lessons in penmanship. 


CHAP. I.] 


GUIDO i-’AvVKES IS PUT TO THE TORTURE 


137 


Guido Fawkes, however, confessed nothing specifically beyond what 
the Government already knew, but Tresham and Catesby’s servant 



Guy Fawkes before and after the Torture. 


Bates, a man remarkable for his betise, confessed whatever the authorities 
required. Tresham being seized with a fatal illness in prison, retracted 
his confession, which he declared had been extorted or “ extortured ” 
—as Strype has it—from him, and he died after placing his recantation 
in the hands of his wife to be given to Cecil. The surviving conspirators 
were brought to trial after some delay, and though they all pleaded not 
guilty, as long as there was a chance of escape, they were no sooner 
convicted beyond all hope than they began boasting of their offence, 
and were all “ on the high ropes ” when they came to the scaffold. 
Garnet the jesuit was served up by way of garniture to the horrible 
banquet that the vengeance of the Protestants required. This brilliant 
character shone with increased lustre as the time for his execution 































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


138 


[book VI. 


approached, and however glorious had been his rise, the setting was 
worthy of Garnet in his very brightest moments. 

Besides those who were executed for an avowal, or at least, a proved 
participation in the Gunpowder Plot, several persons were punished 
very severely, in the capacity of supplementary victims, who might, or 
might not, have been implicated in the conspiracy. Lords Mordaunt 
and Stourton, two Catholic nobles, were fined, respectively, ten thousand 
and four thousand pounds, because they did not happen to be in their 
places in Parliament, to be blown up, had Fawkes succeeded in accom¬ 
plishing his object. The Earl of Northumberland was sent to the 
Tower for a few years, and mulcted of thirty thousand pounds, because 
he had made Percy a gentleman pensioner, some years before; but no 
trouble was taken to show how this could have rendered him afterwards 
a rebel, nor how Northumberland could be responsible, even if such a 
result had really arrived. But it was urged by the apologists for this 
severity, that the Gunpowder Treason would have been fatal alike to the 
good and the bad, and that as the punishment should correspond with 
the offence, an indiscriminate dealing out of penalties among the guilty 
and the innocent was quite allowable. 


CHAP. LI.] 


JAMES URGES A UNION WITH SCOTLAND. 


139 


CHAPTER THE SECOND 

JAMES THE FIRST (CONTINUED). 

he Parliament that was to have 
been dissolved in thin air on the 
5th of November, leaving nothing 
behind but a report in several 
volumes of smoke, met for the des¬ 
patch of business on the 21st of 
January, 1606. Laws were passed 
against the Papists in a most vexa¬ 
tious spirit, and by one enactment 
they were positively prohibited from 
removing more than five miles from 
home without an order signed by 
four magistrates. If a Catholic 
had got into a cab, and the horse 
had run away, without the driver 
being able to pull up within the 
fifth mile, the fare would have 
been most unfairly sacrificed. 

James, who saw the advantage 
Scotland would derive from an 
alliance with England, began to 
urge the Union, but the English naturally objected to such a very 
unprofitable match ; for Scotland had nothing to lose, nothing to give, 
nothing to lend, and nothing to teach, except the art of making bread 
without flour, joke-books without wit, reputation without ability, and a 
living without anything. James felt that the sarcasms on the Scotch 
were personal to himself, and he told the Parliament they ought not to 
talk on matters they did not understand ; but it was thought that to 
restrict them to subjects which they did understand, would be equiva¬ 
lent to depriving them of liberty of speech on nearly every occasion. 

James had become somewhat popular on account of the attempt to 
blow him up sky-high with all his ministers, and a rumour of his having 
been assassinated, sent him up a shade or two higher in the affections 
of his people. It is a feature in the character of the English that they 
always take into their favour any one who seems to be an object of 
persecution ; and there is no doubt that if in a crowd there is any one 
desirous of rising in public esteem, he has only to ask a friend to give 
him a severe and apparently unmerited blow on the head, in order to 
render him the idol of the surrounding multitude. If there had been 
no Gunpowder Plot, it would have been worth the while of James to 












































140 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK VI 


have got one up, for the express purpose of increasing his popularity 
His qualities, as shown in his way of life at this time, do not warrant 
the esteem in which he was held ; for he divided his time between the 
pleasures of the table, the excitements of the chase, and the black¬ 
guardism of the cock-pit. When remonstrated with on the lowness of 
his pursuits, he declared that his health required relaxation; and he 
would declare that he would rather see one of his Dorking chickens win 
his spurs, than witness the grandest tournament. These pursuits, 
which were expensive, caused him to do many acts of meanness to 
obtain the necessary supplies : and among other things he went to dine 
with the Clothworkers as well as with the Merchant Tailors, among both 
of whom the royal hat was sent round at the close of the banquet. At 
the second of these entertainments his own beaver had just made the 
circuit of the table with considerable effect, when, encouraged by the 
liberality of the company, he shoved on to the social board a cap, in the 
name of his son, Prince Henry. The collection for the child was not 
very ample, for many of the guests objected to being called upon for a 
trifle towards lining the pockets of the young gentleman’s new frock, 
more especially when it was obvious that James fully intended to clutch 
the whole of the additional assets. 

Among other disreputable methods he took of procuring money, was 
the institution of the order of Baronets, whose titles he sold at a 


)'/WJ 



King James disposing of Baronetcies. 
































































CHAP. II.] 


DEATH OF PETKCE HENRY. 


141 


thousand pounds each, without regard to the merit of the purchasers. 
The antiquity of a baronetcy is therefore not much in its favour, and 
those who can trace the possession of such a distinction in their family 
down to the • first establishment of the rank, do nothing more than 
prove the possession, either honestly or dishonestly, of a thousand 
pounds by one of his ancestors. Seventy-five families took advantage of 
this traffic in dignities to obtain a sort of spurious nobility, founded on 
the necessities of the sovereign. The only qualifications required of 
candidates wishing to be elected to the order were “ cash down,” to pay 
the fees, and an ability to trace a descent from at least a grandfather on 
the father’s side; so that semble, as the lawyers say, the maternal 
ancestors might have been utterly hypothetical and purely anonymous. 
The arms of the baronets have always included those of Ulster, because 
the money they contributed was designed for the relief of that province 
—a proof that Ireland has been a drain upon England for a long series 
of centuries. The emblem of Ulster is a bloody hand, which was only 
too appropriate to the place ; and the symbol being called in the language 
of heraldry a hand gules—or gold—in a field argent—or silver—was 
also characteristic of the metallic source from which the baronets derived 
their titles. 

Prince Henry, the heir to the throne, had long been looked upon as 
a pleasing contrast to his odious father, and the people were anticipating 
the former’s reign with an assurance that the amiable and accomplished 
son would compensate for the infliction they had endured in the 
ignorance, pride, and selfishness of the parent. Death, however, that 
sometimes seizes first on the best, and leaves the worst till the last—on 
the principle of the boy who began by picking all the plums out of the 
pudding—took the youthful prince before appropriating his papa, and 
caused the latter sinfully to exult in being the survivor of his own 
offspring. He forgot the maxim that “ Whom the gods love, die 
young,” and the remarks he made upon his own comparative longevity 
proved that he at least was one of those whom the gods had not been 
anxious to adopt at the earliest opportunity. The young prince died of 
a malignant fever, on the 5th of November, 1612, and his father, 
whose harsh conduct—especially to Sir Walter Raleigh and other great 
men—had been criticised by his heir, allowed no mourning to take 
place, but made the unnatural and blasphemous boast that “ he should 
outlive all who opposed him.” 

Though having little or no affection for his own children, James 
delighted in having about him some low and sneaking favourite who 
would flatter his ridiculous vanity, and help to cheat him into the belief 
that he was a good and amiable character. As no one of spirit and 
honesty would consent to become the despicable parasite that James 
required, some mean and unprincipled vagabond was of necessity selected 
as the depositary of that confidence which a son, with the feelings of a 
gentleman, could not of course participate. Henry had therefore been 
excluded from that free communication which should exist between child 

L 


VOL. IT. 


142 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOIv VI. 


and parent in every station, and an uneducated humbug named Robert 
Carr bad wormed bis way into the heart, or rather into the favour of 
James, who was drawn towards the other by a sympathy with congenial 
littleness. Carr was such a wretched ignoramus as to be unable to speak 
ten consecutive words of grammar, and it flattered the egregious vanity 
of James to be able to impart some of that education of which he had 
just about enough to enable him to show his superiority over his most 
unlettered pupil. Carr played his cards so successfully that he was soon 
not only knighted but created Viscount Rochester; and though his future 
career proved him worthier of the rope, he actually obtained the garter. 

It was to be presumed that this disreputable scapegrace would soon 
do something or other to prove how far James had been right or wrong 
in the selection of a friend, adviser, companion, and favourite. The 
necessities of Carr were so well supplied by sponging on his royal patron 
that it was not necessary for the former to commit any pecuniary 
swindle ; but he very rapidly got into a most disgraceful connection with 
the Countess of Essex, a vile person who obtained a divorce from her 
own husband, to enable her to marry Rochester. The latter had a 
friend named Sir Thomas Overbury, who advised him to have nothing 
to do with the profligate woman in question. This so irritated the 
countess that she persuaded her paramour to join her in poisoning the 
party who had given the advice, and after trying the homoeopathic 
principle for some weeks without effect, they at length gave him one 
tremendous dose which did the atrocious business. Carr had received 
the title of Earl of Somerset on his infamous marriage, but the favourite 
was getting already a little out of favour when the affair of the murder 
happened. James being one of those who promptly turned his back on 
those who were “ down in the world,” and had smiles for those only 
w'ho were prosperous, began to estrange himself from Somerset, and to 
transfer his worthless friendship to George Villiers, afterwards Duke of 
Buckingham. 

The king first saw this young scamp at the Theatre Royal, Cambridge, 
where a five-act farce called Ignoramus was being represented by a party 
of distinguished amateurs, with the applause that usually attends these 
interesting performances. Villiers was appointed cup-bearer—a grade 
immediately under that of bottle-holder—to the king, and the influence 
of the new favourite was soon felt by the old, who found himself arrested 
one fine morning on the charge of having been concerned in Sir Thomas 
Overbury’s murder. The steps taken for the punishment of this 
atrocity were perfectly characteristic of the period. By w r ay of a 
preliminary offering to Justice, some half dozen of the minor and subor¬ 
dinate parties to the crime were executed off-hand, while the two prin¬ 
cipal delinquents, Somerset and his countess, having been tardily 
condemned, were immediately afterwards pardoned. The infamous 
couple subsequently received a pension of four thousand a year from the 
king, who no doubt felt that Somerset could show him up, and was just 
the sort of scoundrel to do so unless he could be w r ell paid f}r his silence. 


CHAP. II.] 


RALEIGH ARRIVES AT GUIANA. 


143 


The annuity allowed to the ex-favourite must be looked upon as hush- 
money, rendered necessary by the mutual rascalities of the donor and 
the recipient, who being in each other’s power, were under the necessity 
oi effecting a compromise. The fall of Somerset was followed by the 
rise of Villiers, who rushed through the entire peerage with railroad 
rapidity, passing the intermediate stations of Viscount, Earl, and Mar¬ 
quis, till he reached the terminus as Duke of Buckingham. 

Poor Raleigh, who had been thirteen years in the Tower, where he 
was writing the History of the World, began to feel a very natural 
anxiety to get out of his prison, and describe, from ocular demonstra¬ 
tion, the subject of his gigantic labours. He accordingly spread a report 
that he knew of a gold mine in Guiana, where the stuff for making 
guineas could be had only for the trouble of picking it up, and the king 
was persuaded to let him go and try his luck in America. Raleigh had 
10 sooner got free than he published a prospectus and got up a company 
with a preliminary deposit sufficient to start him off well on his new 
enterprise. He proved with all the clearness of figures—which the 
reader must not think of confounding with facts—that a hundred per 
cent must be realised; and the shares in Raleigh’s gold mine rose to 
such a height that he was enabled to rig a ship after having rigged the 
market. Plans were published, with great streaks of gamboge painted 
all over, to represent the supposed veins of gold that were waiting only 
to be worked ; and through the medium of these veins the British public 
bled very rapidly. 

The extent of the mining mania got up by Sir Walter may be 
imagined when we state that he arrived with twelve vessels at Guiana, 
a portion of which had already been taken possession of by Spain; and 
the English speculators declared with disgust, that they had come for 
the gold, and had not expected to meet the Spanish. The town of St. 
Thomas being already in the possession of the latter, was boldly attacked 
and ultimately taken, but instead of finding a mine there were only two 
ingots of gold in the whole place, which Raleigh clutched, exclaiming 
“Those are mine,” immediately on landing. It was evident to the 
whole party that Raleigh’s story of the gold mine was a mere “ dodge ” 
to get himself released from the Tower; and when they came to look for 
the boasted vein, they found that it was literally in vain that they 
searched for the precious metal. A mutiny at once broke out, and as 
Raleigh deceived them in his promise of introducing them to abundance 
of gold, they made him form a very close connection with a large 
quantity of iron. They in fact threw him into fetters, a species of 
treatment that, had it been applied to every projector of a bubble com¬ 
pany during the railway mania of 1846, would have hung half the 
aldermen of London in chains, and linked society together by a general 
concatenation of nearly every rank as well as every profession. Poor 
Raleigh arrived safe in Plymouth Sound, but he found a proclamation 
out against him, accusing him of a long catalogue of crimes, and inviting 
all the world to take him into custody. 


144 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


The Spanish ambassador was at the bottom of this affair, for the 
Spaniards had a score of old scores against Sir Walter, who had no 
sooner landed at Plymouth than he was made a prisoner. With con¬ 
siderable ingenuity he pretended to he very ill, and even feigned 
insanity; hut the latter was a plea that could not so easily be established 
in the time of Raleigh as it has been in our own days, when it has been 
found a convenient and effective excuse for those who, having committed 
murder, escape on the ground of their being given to eccentricity. 
Raleigh tried it on very hard, by talking incoherently, playing the fool, 
dancing fandangos in his prison, sending a potato to his tailor to be 
measured for a new jacket, and feigning other acts of madness, but to 
the writ de lunatico inquirendo, there was no other return than nullum 
iter , or no go, when the investigation into his state of mind was 
concluded. In order to save the trouble and expense of a fresh convic¬ 
tion, the old outstanding judgment was again brought up, and it was 
determined to kill him by a bill of reviver—if such an anomaly could 
be permitted. He grew ponderously facetious as his end drew nigh, 
and made one or two jokes that might have saved him had they been 
heard in time, for they gave evidence of an amount of mental imbecility 
that should have released him from all responsibility on account of his 
actions. Among other lugubrious levities of Raleigh before his death, 
was the well-known but generally-execrated remark in reference to a cup 
of sack which was brought to him : “ Ha! ” said he, “ I shall soon have 
the sack without the cup ; ” an observation that elicited, as soon as it was 
known, an immediate order for his execution. “ That head of Raleigh's 
must come off,” cried the king, “ for it is evident the fellow has lost the 
use of it.” On the 29th of October, 1618, poor Raleigh joked his last, 
upon the scaffold, where he stood shivering with cold, when the sheriff 
asked him to step aside for a few minutes and warm himself. “ No,” 
said Sir Walter, “ my wish is to take it cool; ” and then looking at the 
axe, he balanced it on the top of his little finger—some say his chin— 
and observed, “ This is a great medicine, rather sharp, but it cures all 
diseases.” At this the headsman, no doubt irritated by the maddening 
mediocrity of the intended witticism, let fall the fatal blade, and Raleigh, 
with his head off, never came to—or rather never came one—again. 

We ought, perhaps, to shed a tear over the fate of this great, though 
unprincipled man; but it is not so easy to turn on the main of senti¬ 
ment to the fountains of pity, after the water has been cut off during 
more than two centuries by Time, in the capacity of turncock. Besides, 
in going through the history of our native land there are so many 
victims, all more or less worthy of a gush of sympathy, that we should 
literally dissolve ourselves in tears before we had got half through our 
labours, if we began giving way to what old King Lear has ungallantly 
termed a woman’s weakness. 

On the 16th of June, 1621, James, being “hard up,” and finding 
that the circulation of the begging-box produced no effect, was compelled 
to summon a Parliament, Some cash to go on with was voted to the 


CHAP. II.] 


OFFICIAL DELINQUENCIES. 


145 


king, but the Commons then proceeded to investigate some cases of 
gross corruption that had been discovered among the Ministers. The 
Testes, the Cubieres, and other official swindlers of modern France, who, 
in the midst of meanness, deception, and theft, were still blatant about 
their “ honour,” might have found, in the England of 1621, a precedent 
for their venal rascality. Sir John Bennet, Judge of the Prerogative 
Court of Canterbury, and Field, Bishop of Llandaff, were convicted of 
bribery. Yelverton, the Attorney-General, was found guilty of having 
aided in an extensive swindle in the Patent Office, and Bacon, the great 
“ moral philosopher,” was found to have been fleecing the public in the 



Bacon, y<> great Moral Philosopher. From a remarkably scarce Print. 


* 

Court of Chancery, to such a degree, that he might have stuffed the 
woolsack over and over again from the produce of the shearing to which 
he submitted the flocks of suitors who appealed to him. He would take 
bribes in open court, and he would pretend to consider, that as all men 
should be equal in the eye of the law, the equality could only be achieved 
by emptying the pockets of every party that came into court, as a pre¬ 
liminary to giving him a hearing. It has been said by his apologists, 
that though he took bribes, his decisions were just, for he would often 
give judgment against those who had paid him for a decree in their 
favour. The excuse merely proves that he was sufficiently unscrupulous 




































146 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


to follow up one fraud by another, and to cheat his suitors out of the 
consideration upon which they had parted with their money. Bacon 
endeavoured to effect a compromise with his accusers by a confession of 
about one per cent, of his crimes, but the Peers insisted on making him 
answerable in full for all his delinquencies. He then acknowledged 
twenty-eight articles, which seemed to satisfy the most ravenous of his 
enemies, who were hungering to see his reputation torn to pieces by the 
million mouths of rumour. The great seal was taken away from a man 
of such a degraded stamp, he was fined forty thousand pounds—a mere 
bagatelle out of what he had bagged—was declared incapable of holding 
office or sitting in Parliament, and was sent off to the Tower. 

There were thoughts of beheading him, but happily for England, her 
Bacon was saved to devote the remainder of his life to literary compo¬ 
sitions, which have greatly redeemed his name from obloquy. We must 
regard the character of our Bacon as streaky, for the dark is inter¬ 
mingled with the fair in the most wonderful manner. “ Bacon was 
undoubtedly rash, but he might have been rasher,” says the incorrigible 
(Strype, whose name is continually suggestive of the lashing he merited 

The Commons having been instrumental in bringing to light a con¬ 
siderable quantity of corruption, seemed determined to continue on the 
same scent, and every one who had a grievance was invited to lay it at 
once before Parliament. The waste-paper baskets of the House were of 
course soon overflowing with popular complaints, for there is scarcely a 
man, woman, or child that cannot rake up a grievance of some kind, 
upon the invitation of persons professing to be able and willing to supply 
a remedy. James, fearful that his prerogative would be entrenched 
upon, wrote a letter to the Speaker, advising the Commons not to form 
themselves into an assembly of gossips, to listen to all the tittle-tattle 
that an entire nation of scandal-mongers would be ready to collect; but 
the House would not be diverted from its honest purpose by the sneers 
or threats of the sovereign. A good deal of polite and other letter- 
writing ensued between the king and the Parliament, until the latter 
entered on its Journals a protestation, claiming the freedom of speech 
and the right of giving advice as the undoubted “ inheritance of the 
subjects of England.” 

James was furious at what had occurred, and ordering the Journals of 
the Commons to be brought to him, he contemptuously tore out the page ; 
and then, sending back the book, advised the House to turn over a new 
leaf as soon as possible. “Tell your master,” said Coke, in a whisper that 
nobody heard, “ tell him he will do well to take a leaf out of our book, but 
not in the style in which this leaf has been taken.” Parliament was first 
prorogued, and then dissolved by the king, who declared it would do no 
good as long as it lasted, and Coke, who was charged with adding fuel 
to the Parliamentary fire, was sent to the Tower with several others. 
On the day of the dissolution James nearly met with his ow T n dissolution, 
for while taking a ride on a spirited horse, who had perhaps a certain 
instinctive sympathy with the popular cause, he was thrown into the New 


CHAP. II.J 


BUCKINGHAM AND PRINCE CHARLES. 


147 


River. This was on the 6th of January, 1622, when the water was frozen; 
and James had just been saying to himself, “ I’m glad I have made the 
plunge, and broken the ice with these turbulent Commons,” when he 
found himself plunging and breaking the ice after another fashion. 
Fortunately his boots were buoyant—perhaps they had cork soles—and 



King James rescued from the New River. 


Sir Richard Young, seizing a boat-hook, which he converted for the 
moment into a boot-hook, drew the sovereign by the heels from what he 
afterwards declared was decidedly not his proper element. 

Buckingham, as we have already seen, was the sole successor to 
Somerset in the office of royal favourite ; but Charles, the Prince of 
Wales, had taken rather an aversion than otherwise to the person 
whom his father patronised. The friends of the latter were generally 
so disreputable, that his son could not go wrong in avoiding them; but 
Buckingham beginning to look upon Charles as the better speculation 
of the two, resolved on making himself as agreeable as possible to the 
more faithful and therefore more promising branch of royalty. The 
duke being fond of scampish adventure, proposed a plan better suited 
to be made the incident of a farce, than to be ranked as an event in 












































































































































148 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


history. He suggested that Charles and himself should travel to 
Spain under the assumed names of Jack Smith and Tom Smith, in order 
that the prince might introduce himself to the Infanta of Spain, whom 
it had been proposed he should marry. For such a wild-goose scheme 
to succeed, an Infanta of Spain must have been much more accessible 
in those days than in ours ; for though Jack Smith and Tom Smith 
might find their way into a public-house parlour, and make love to the 
landlord’s daughter, they would assuredly never be allowed to carry their 
gallantries into any European palace, or even to obtain admittance into 
any respectable private family. James, when the scheme was proposed 
to him, discouraged it at first, but being taken by the scapegrace couple 
in “a jovial humour,” which means when the trio happened to be 
disgracefully drunk, the consent of the king was given to the farcical 
enterprise. 

Having arrived at Madrid, the two hopeful youths rode up on mules 
to the door of Sir Thomas Higby, the British ambassador, and sent in 
the names of John and Thomas Smith; but Digby, knowing no less 
than half a hundred Smiths, declined seeing the “ party ” unless a more 
special description was sent up to him. Without waiting for further 
formality, Buckingham—aims Tom Smith—walked with his portmanteau 
straight into the ambassador’s presence, after a series of scuffles on the 
staircase, and in the passages, accompanied by shouts of “ Keep back, 
fellow!” “You can’t come up!” and other exclamations that had pre¬ 
pared Digby to give Tom Smith a reception by no means encouraging. 
When the ambassador recognised his visitor, his manner completely 
changed, and his politeness knew no bounds when in Jack Smith, who 
entered next, Digby saw no less a person than the heir to the throne of 
England. The incognito was of course at an end in an instant, and the 
next day Buckingham and the prince were presented to the royal family 
of Spain, though the farce of the disguise was still kept up to a certain 
extent; and the Infanta was sent out in her father’s carriage, “ sitting 
in the boot,” says Howell, “ that Charles might get a sight of her.” 
The position of a young lady looking from the boot of a carriage could 
not have been very becoming, and she does not seem to have made a 
particularly favourable impression on her intended suitor. He never¬ 
theless expressed his readiness to have another look at her, and he 
played the part of lover at Buckingham’s instigation, for the purpose of 
getting a variety of presents from the young lady’s family. 

Her brother Philip was anxious for the match, and did everything to 
encourage it, by giving some valuable article to Charles whenever he 
evinced anything like affection for the young Infanta. One day he pre¬ 
tended to be in a particularly tender mood, and at every piece of 
gallantry he displayed Philip gave him something costly to take away 
with him. By a series of smirks, leers, and pretty speeches, he secured 
some original pictures by Titian and Correggio, but when he rushed 
up to the Infanta with amorous playfulness, pinking her in the side 
with bis cane, and giving the Spanish version of “ Whew, you little 


CHAP. II.J 


EARL OF BRISTOL SENT TO THE TOWER. 


149 


baggage ! ” the Queen of Spain was so delighted that she emptied her 
reticule, which was full of amber, into the pocket of the Prince, while 
the word “ Halves ” was whispered in a sepulchral tone into his ear by 
the crafty and avaricious Buckingham. 

When they had got all they could out of the Spanish royal family, 
the English prince and his companion made up their minds that the 
Infanta was a failure, and that they had better get home with all possible 
celerity. Buckingham began treating Philip with the most disrespectful 
familiarity, slapping him boisterously on the back, alluding to him 
curtly, but not courteously, as Phil., and otherwise offending the royal 
dignity. At length Prince Charles and his companion called to take 
leave, when the former played his old part of a devoted lover, beating in 
the crown of his hat, stamping on the floor, and giving the numerous 
signs of devotion that a practice of several weeks under a popular actor 
had made him completely master of. He had no sooner turned his 
back upon Madrid, and commenced moving towards home, than he made 
up his mind to cut the matrimonial connection; and he announced his 
determination by a messenger, who was instructed to say to Philip, that, 
for the good of both parties, and decidedly for the happiness of one, the 
abandonment of the marriage was much to be desired. Philip, upon 
whom the Infanta was a drag he would have been glad to get off his 
hands, became angry at the tampering that had taken place with the 
young lady’s affections; but as these were no doubt pretty tough, the 
damage was not material. A proxy had been left in the hands of 
Digby, Earl of Bristol, the British Ambassador at Madrid, and the 
royal family sent nearly every day, with their compliments, begging to 
know when the proxy was to be acted upon ; but finding at last, that, 
notwithstanding the proxy, there was no approximation to a satisfactory 
result, a most unpleasant feeling was created. Bristol, who was a man 
of honour, felt very uncomfortable at the evasive replies he was compelled 
to give, and was not sorry to return to England; though he had, as he 
naturally observed, “ not bargained for the warrant which, in the most 
unwarrantable manner, awaited his arrival, and sent him straight to the 
Tower.” He was soon afterwards released, but was not allowed by 
Buckingham, the favourite, to approach the king, and a recommendation 
to Bristol to go to Bath, or to retire to his country seat, was the only 
reply the ex-ambassador could obtain to his solicitations to be allowed to 
offer explanations to his sovereign. 

Charles had given the Infanta scarcely time to recover from the jilting 
she had just undergone, when, with a cruel disregard of that young 
person’s feelings, he made up to Mademoiselle Henrietta of France, and 
a marriage with the latter was speedily concluded. The dowry, amounting 
to about £100,000, was paid partly down, but the nuptial ceremony 
was performed by proxy ; and the English government wrote over to 
say, that there was no hurry about the bride, provided some of the cash 
was transmitted to England as speedily as possible. 

With some of tbe cash thus obtained, and with money squeezed out 


150 


COMIC HISTOKS OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOB VI. 


of tlie people, an expensive engagement was formed with Count Mans 
feldt, an adventurer from the Low Countries, who undertook to recover 
the Palatinate, if an English army of twelve thousand men were placed 
mder him. The troops were put at his disposal, and embarked at 
Dover; but on reaching Calais the governor had no orders to let them 
pass, and in consequence of the loss of the city in Mary’s time, the free 
list, of which the English had been in the habit of taking advantage, 
was of course suspended. In vain did Mansfeldt inform the door-keeper 
that it was all right, and insist that the name of Mansfeldt and party 
should have been left with the authorities; for the man resolutely 
declared he had a duty to perform, which prevented him from admitting 
the earl and his followers. While they were waiting outside the bar of 
Calais, several of the troops suffered severely from sea-sickness, and 
being obliged to go round by the back way, they had become so atte¬ 
nuated, that instead of being fit for marching into the Palatinate, they 
were much better adapted for marching into Guy’s Hospital. 

The failure of this expedition was the last event of importance in the 
reign of James, who was fast sinking under gout and tertian ague, pro¬ 
duced by a long indulgence in rums, gins, brandies, and other com¬ 
pounds. He died, at the age of fifty-nine, on the 27th of March, 1625, 
having reigned upwards of two-and-twenty years, during which he 
showed himself fully deserving of the title bestowed on him by Sully, 
who said of James I. that he w r as the “ wisest fool in Europe.” He 
w r as learned, it is true, but his acquirements, such as they were, became 
a bore, from his disagreeable habit of thrusting them at most inappro¬ 
priate times upon all who approached him. He was weak, mean, and 
pusillanimous, while his excessive vanity caused him to select for his 
companions those pitiful sycophants who would affect admiration for 
those miserable qualities, which, had he cultivated the friendship of 
honest and intelligent men, he might have been eventually broken of 
He lost, and indeed he did not desire the society of his children, 
because they could not sympathise with those littlenesses of character 
which, the older they grew, their judgment caused them more and more 
to despise and deplore in their unfortunate parent. 

Happily only two out of seven survived to endure that alienation 
which must have been painful while it would have been unavoidable ; 
and they were thus spared the humiliation of seeing a father vain, 
selfish, and unrepentant to the last, while their deaths in rapid succes¬ 
sion gave him happily no uneasiness. For his eldest son he had, as we 
have already seen, prohibited the wearing of mourning, thus giving a 
proof of combined malice and stupidity, since his insults to the dead 
were of course as impotent as they were wicked and infamous. He was 
suspicious in the extreme, and always fancied he was going to be done 
or done for. To guard against the latter contingency he wore a quilted 
doublet that was proof against a stiletto, and under the apprehension of 
being taken advantage of, he obstinately excluded every one from his 
confidence. The result was that he never had a friend, through his 


CHAP. II. 1 


CHARACTER OF JAMES I. 


151 


constant, dread of an imaginary enemy. It has been said of him by one 
of his historians, that he was fond of laughing at his own conceits ; but 
the wretch who can even smile at a joke of his own must be such a libel 
upon human nature that not even Hume-an(d) Smollett (ha ! ha! mark 
the pun) shall make us believe that an individual so abject could ever 
have existed. 

Though the sovereign himself was not calculated to inspire respect, 
there were many events in his reign which rendered it useful if not 
glorious. Sir Hugh Middleton commenced at Amwell that now venerable 
New River, by dabbling in which he swamped himself and secured a 
stream of health and prosperity to those who came after him. The 
immortal Hicks finished his memorable Hall; Lord Napier invented 
logarithms, to the extreme disgust of the school-boys of every generation; 
and Dr. Harvey made the magnificent discovery that the blood is a 
periodical enjoying the most unlimited circulation. Two Dutch navi¬ 
gators contrived to double Cape Horn ; which the reader must not 
imagine was twice its present size before that operation was performed, 
for Cape Horn, like any other cape, is not larger when doubled. Bill 
Baffin, an Englishman (you all know Bill Baffin) discovered Baffin’s 
Bay in the year 1616, and a patent for the fire engine, granted two 
years afterwards, has been stated as a proof that steam power was first 
known in England in 1618, though upon inquiry we are inclined to 
think there was more of smoke than steam in the invention spoken of. 

The wealth and extravagance of the nobles, among whom corruption 
and bribery were practised “ wholesale, retail, and for exportation,” may 
be imagined from the statement, that on the marriage of the French 
king, the horse of the English ambassador wore silver shoes so loosely 
fastened on, that they fell off, and were instantly replaced, for distribu¬ 
tion among the populace. We can scarcely believe that any English 
horse could have walked in these silver shoes or slippers in the time of 
James, however skilfully they could have substituted sliding for walking, 
since the Wood Demon, coming to London, caused the introduction of 
wooden pavements. 

The luxury and display that stand prominently forward among the 
characteristics of the period, were discountenanced by James when seen 
in others, though he w r ould have spared nothing for the selfish gratification 
of his own extravagance. Bacon, whose tendency to flattery justifies the 
popular analogy between butter and bacon, remarked of the king that 
he w r ould recommend the country gentlemen to remain at their seats, 
by saying to them, “In London you are like ships in a sea, which 
show like nothing; but in your country villages you are like ships 
in a river, which look like great things.” This, after all, was a funny 
idea, but a bad argument; for a ship in a river, like a storm in a puddle, 
is somewhat out of its element. Many would prefer being wrecked in 
the ocean of a busy but tempestuous life, to remaining aground in the 
dismal swamp of rural obscurity. The thing to be desired, is the art o r 
keeping a steady course, and steering in the right direction ; but it is 


152 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


mere pusillanimity to accept a recommendation to shirk the voyage. 
Among the inventions of the reign of James, we must not omit to 
mention the sedan, a contrivance of the lazy and luxurious Buckingham. 
On its first appearance in public, the mob hooted the machine as it 
passed, declaring that their fellow-creatures should not do the service of 
beasts; but the “fellow-creatures,” being paid for and liking the job, 
were the first to beat off their friends, the people. The friends of 
humanity were however not content till they had broken in the top and 
knocked out the bottom of the machine, leaving Buckingham to walk 
home in a most uncomfortable case, with his head peering out at the 
top, and his feet appearing at the bottom, of his novel equipage. 

The literary characters who flourished in the reign of James were 
very numerous; and we must, of course, place at the head of them our 
old acquaintance the “ Swan of Avon,” as some goose has most irreve¬ 
rently christened him. Shakspeare adorned the time of James by 
dying in it, as, by living in it, he shed a lustre on that of Elizabeth. 
One of our predecessors * in the gigantic task we have undertaken—and 
by the way, it is said that Mr. Macaulay, fired by our shining example, 
is preparing himself to follow it by a retirement from public life—one 
of our predecessors, we repeat, has thrown cold water upon the warm 
admiration which is felt for Shakspeare to this day, and -which at this 
very moment is urging the whole nation to buy his house at Stratford, 
though the town was burnt f down at about the time when the poet lived 
in it. Our own enthusiasm, which was great at first for the possession 
of this relic, has, we confess, a little abated since our research put us in 
possession of the unpleasant fact, that the bard must have been burnt 
out, notwithstanding the assurance of the auctioneer, who acts, of course, 
on what he considers the best policy. Whatever we may think of the 
house the poet left or did not leave behind him, the houses he still 
draws by the magic of his genius are sufficient to refute the argument 
of the hypercritical Hume, that Shakspeare appeared greater than he 
really was, because he happened to be irregular. We are not aware 
that irregularity and grandeur must necessarily seem to be combined, 
and indeed, irregularity in payment, which considerably aggrandises an 
account, is the only instance we can call to mind in which we see some 
ground for our fellow-historian’s strange hypothesis. 

Fletcher, the dramatist, and his partner Beaumont, belonged to the 
reign of James ; but when the latter died, in 1610, the firm was broken 
up ; and as each had been nothing by himself, Fletcher fell into wretched 
insignificance. His name had only been known in connection with that 
of Beaumont, and if he attempted to play the lion afterwards at an 
evening party, a cool inquiry of “ Fletcher! Fletcher! who s Fletcher?” 
was the only sensation the announcement of his name elicited. Some 
say he died of the plague in 1625, but it is more probable that the 

* Hume. 

f Stratford-upon-Avon was all destroyed by fire in September, 1614, two years before 
Sliakspeare’s death. 


CHAP. II.] MEN OF GENIUS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. 153 

plaguy indifference shown towards him everywhere, after he lost poor 
Beaumont, was in reality the death of him. 

Honest Jack Stowe, the antiquarian, ought not to be overlooked, 
though time has long since stowed away his works among the lumber of 
our libraries. His Survey of London was his greatest literary labour, 
and he was preparing a new edition in 1605, when he was obliged to 
r ‘ Stow it ” by an attack of illness that unhappily proved fatal. 

Donne, the poet, can hardly be mentioned among the literary dons 
of the age ; but Bacon is a luminary that must not be snuffed out in a 
single sentence. It has been said that his wit was far-fetched, but a 
thing is certainly not the less valuable for having been brought from 
a long way off; for if it were so, the diamond would lose much of its 
value in the London market. If Bacon’s wit was far-fetched, it was 
not only worth the carriage, but it has been found sufficiently valuable 
to warrant its being forwarded on from generation to generation ; and 
it will, we suspect, find its way to a still remote posterity, before it arrives 
at the terminus of its journey. 

James himself was but a contemptible writer, and would have been 
scarcely worth his five pounds a week in these days, as the London 
correspondent of a country newspaper. His imagination would not 
have been vigorous enough to supply him with the “ latest intelligence,” 
which must always be in type at least two days before the date on which 
the facts it professes to impart are stated to have happened. As an 
industrious chronicler of early gooseberries, new carrots, gigantic 
cabbages, irruptions of lady-birds, and showers of frogs, he would have 
been useful in his way, or he might have undertaken that branch of 
periodical literature which embraces the interesting recollections—or 
non-recollections rather—of the oldest inhabitant. 


] 54 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK VI. 


CHAPTER THE THIRD. 

CHARLES THE FIRST. 

On the afternoon of Monday, March the 28th, 1625, Charles I. was 
proclaimed at Charing Cross, amid a tremendous show T er of rain and 
hail, so that the commencement of his reign was hailed in a somewhat 
disagreeable manner. His first care was to turn out the fools and 
buffoons that his father had kept at Court, or rather, as Buckingham 
called it, to get rid of the comic and pantomimic company which had 
been established in the palace. He next determined to send over for 
his new bride, who appeared to have been forgotten in the hurry of 
business, and who was waiting at Paris, “to be left till called for.” 
Buckingham -was despatched to take charge of the precious cargo; but 
his behaviour at the French Court was so disreputable that he received 
some very broad hints as to the propriety of his speedy return to 
England. He made love to the young Queen Anne of Austria, and 
flirted with every female member of the royal family, to the extreme 
disgust of Cardinal Richelieu, who told him, plainly, that such conduct 
could not be permitted, at any price. 

Buckingham took his departure, with the young Plenrietta, on the 
23rd of May; but there must have been pretty goings on, or dreadful 
standings still, during the journey, for it was the 27th of June before 
they arrived at Dover. Charles, who had naturally began to wonder 
what had become of his minister and his bride, set off to meet them, 
and having slept at Canterbury on the 27th of June, he reached 
Dover on the 28th, and found his intended, who had “ put up ” at 
the Castle. 

The first interview was very dramatic, for Charles extended both his 
arms, and Henrietta, taking a hop, a skip, and a jump, tumbled 
gracefully into them. Finding her a little taller than he expected, he 
looked at her feet, when the young Princess coquettishly pulled off her 
shoe, to prove that there was no imposition practised, and that it was 
impossible there could be any deception through the medium of high 
heels, for she had, in reality, a sole above it. The newly married 
couple started for Canterbury at once, and making another day of it to 
Rochester, they came via Gravesend to London, where they arrived in 
the midst of one of those pelting show T ers which have been graphically 
compared to a melee of cats, dogs, and pitchforks. 

Charles being in want of money had assembled a Parliament, which 
opened for business on the 18th of June, and he at once asked for 
6ome supplies; but as he stammered in his speech, there was a sort of 


CHAP. III.] 


CHARLES DISSOLVES PARLIAMENT. 


155 


hesitation in liis demand, which some took for modesty. With real, 
or affected delicacy, he declined mentioning any specific sum, but 
requested his faithful Commons to give what they pleased, and they 
were thus placed in the embarrassing position of a gentleman, who, on 
asking “ what’s to pay ? ” finds it left to that dreadfully sliding-scale, his 
“ own generosity.” This dishonest manoeuvre, for such it usually is, 
succeeds frequently in extracting twice the proper amount from the 
pockets of him whose liberality is thus artfully invoked; but the 
Commons, being apparently “ up to the dodge,” voted Charles £112,000, 
to meet liabilities to the tune of some £700,000, per annum, for the 
war, to say nothing of his father’s debts and other contingencies. 
Pocketing this miserably inadequate contribution, he adjourned the 
Parliament, on account of the Plague, and having met it again at 
Oxford, in August of the same year, he told the Commons, plainly, 
that he “ must have cash,” for lie was being dunned by the King of 
Denmark, who held his promissory note, and that his private creditors 
would allow him no peace in his own palace. He protested solemnly 
that he had not the means of paying his way for the subsistence of 
himself and his family, and, throwing a quantity of tradesmen’s accounts, 
unsettled, before the Speaker’s chair, asked, imploringly, if those were 
the sort of bills that could be got rid of by ordering them to be read 
that day six months, or by their being suffered to lie on the table? 
The Commons shook their heads, expressed their regret, buttoned up 
their pockets, and declared they could do nothing. The matter now 
became serious, for Charles had changed his butcher already three or 
four times, and was having his bread of nearly the last of a confiding 
batch of bakers. “ Something must be done,” he said, with much 
solemnity, to himself, and he wrote off a polite note to the Corporations 
of Salisbury and Southampton, requesting the loan of £3000, which 
was loyally granted him. Angry at being baffled and left insolvent by 
his Parliament, he declared that he would, at least, prove himself solvent 
in one respect, by dissolving the Parliament who had so rudely resisted 
his demands. 

Finding that he had got nothing by begging, and very little by 
borrowing, he was thrown upon the expedient of stealing, as a last 
resort. With the money lent him by some of his subjects he resolved 
on fitting out a fleet, under Cecil, to attack some Spanish ships, which he 
understood were lying at Cadiz, with some valuable cargoes on board. 
He reached the bay, and being kept at bay by the enemy, for a short 
time, he at last landed, very silently, the leaders exclaiming “ Piano , 
Piano," and took a fort. The troops, finding a quantity of wine in the 
garrison, partook so freely of it that they lost all their ammunition, 
and spoiled several pounds of best canister, by making too free with 
the juice of the grape. Cecil, finding that the longer they remained 
the more intoxicated they got, resolved on re-shipping as many as 
could be got to stand upon their legs, and to return to England. The 


150 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI* 


British sailors were, however, in those days, such delicate creatures that 
half of them died of sea-sickness, and a very few of them returned 
home alive. 

Charles, having been foiled in his last hope of recruiting his ex¬ 
hausted resources by plunder, resolved to try another Parliament, and 
a new one was manufactured with a view to give every chance to the 
experiment. He endeavoured to weaken the opposition by putting 
several of its members into offices which would prevent them from 
sitting in the House of Commons ; but, this artful manoeuvre having 
been seen through, only served to put the people more on their 
guard. 

The new Parliament was in its principles the fac simile of its pre¬ 
decessor, and on the 6th of February, 1626, voted to Charles just 
about one-tenth of what he really wanted, and one-twentieth of what he 
asked. Notwithstanding the smallness of the subsidy, he took it, and 
resolved to pay his creditors something on account, as far as the money 
would go, and trust to the future to enable him to make up the de¬ 
ficiency. Having shown a pretty resolute disposition in dealing with 
the king, it is not surprising that the Commons should at length have 
determined to take a turn at the minister. Buckingham had long been 
very obnoxious, and one Dr. Turner—remarkable for his straight-for¬ 
ward conduct, and his determination not to turn—moved a question, 
“ Whether Common Report was a good ground of proceeding ? ” Though 
Common Report has generally been accounted a common story-teller, she 
had been tolerably right about the Duke of Buckingham, and the reso¬ 
lution to proceed against him on the faith of Common Report was at once 
approved. 

On the 8th of May a still more resolute step was taken with 
reference to the “ favourite,” as this generally detested person was 
absurdly called, by articles of impeachment being preferred against him. 
The duke and his master seemed to treat the matter rather as a joke, 
and Charles even went down to the House of Lords to speak in favour of 
Buckingham. These proceedings were so clearly unconstitutional and 
irregular, that if the British Lion had taken to roaring, and only roared 
out in time, he might have saved many of the disagreeable consequences 
that unhappily followed. Considering how very intrusive this animal 
has sometimes been on occasions when he really was not wanted, it is 
lamentable to think that “ the squeak in time, ” which might have saved 
nine times nine hundred and ninety-nine, was not forthcoming at the 
exact moment when its value would have been extreme. 

Notwithstanding the impeachment of Buckingham, he was still 
loaded with fresh honours, and he became Chancellor of the University 
of Cambridge, at which the Commons vainly expressed their disgust. 
They nevertheless continued boldly enough remonstrating against this, 
and that, and the other, until the king regularly shut them up by a 
dissolution, without their having passed a single act. 


chap, hi.] 


CHARLES BORROWS MONEY. 


157 


Charles, sympathising with Nature in an utter abhorrence of a 
vacuum, which he found in the royal treasury, devoted all his energies 
to filling it. “ Must have cash,” was the motto adopted by his Majesty; 
who was not particular whether he begged, borrowed, or stole, so that lie 
succeeded in replenishing his pockets. He looked up every outstanding 
liability, and routed out a lot of recusants who had fallen into arrear 
with their penalties. He borrowed money from the nobility—if it can 







His Gracious Majesty Charles I. borrowing money. 


be called borrowing to go up to a person, exclaiming, “ Lend me your 
money,” and at the same time take it forcibly away from him. But the 
most tremendous swindle of all was the demand of ship-money ; a tax 
he laid upon all sea-ports, under the pretence of their contributing a 
certain number of ships to the defence of the country. He, of course, 
pocketed the proceeds without supplying the ships, so that if the country 
had been attacked, there would not have been a sail to resist the 
assailants. Charles and his favourite, Buckingham, declared, with dis¬ 
reputable frivolity, that the ship money was appropriately applied ; for 
it was, in fact, floating capital, and helped to keep them above water 
just as much as if it had been devoted to the purchase of a navy 

VOL. II. M 
















































































































158 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


Something having been said during the sitting of Parliament about a 
subsidy, which had never been granted, Charles thought he might as 
well collect it at any rate, though the Commons had declined voting it. 
Promises were held out that it should all be paid back out of the next 
supplies, or, in fact, that though the king helped himself from the right- 
hand pockets of his subjects, he would return the money out of their left- 
hand pockets—some day or another. A great many of the people, who 
objected to this remote reversionary interest, were thrown into prison, or 
sent to serve in the navy, where they became British Tars in spite of 
themselves, and some of them having received a classical education, 
introduced, no doubt, the College Hornpipe into the fleet, as an elegant 
and scholarly pastime. 

Even the church was made the medium of extortion, for the popular 
preachers recommended from their pulpits the propriety of cashing up to 
any extent that the sovereign might require. By way of economising 
at home, Charles went one afternoon to the queen’s apartments and dis¬ 
missed every one of her tribe of French servants, who were dancing and 
curvetting in the presence of their mistress. This ballet of private life 
was summarily brought to a close by a general chassez of the whole 
crew, who had been dancing attendance on her Majesty since her mar¬ 
riage, and she was so enraged at their dismissal that she broke the 
windows with her fist, which shows the panes she was at to mark her 
displeasure. The French women howled very piteously, so that, between 
their lamentations in broken English, and the queen’s expostulations in 
broken glass, the hubbub was truly terrible. These disturbances 
fomented the ill feeling between France and England, which Bucking¬ 
ham desired to increase, and he actually had the excessive vanity to 
put himself at the head of a fleet, which sailed to Rochelle, where he 
“ carried himself nobly,” to use the words of the king, but where, in 
fact, he carried himself off as speedily as his legs would allow, 
for he ran away after having made a desperate failure. Charles was 
now, once more, as completely cleaned out as a young scamp in a farce, 
who arrives “ without sixpence in his pocket,” just like “ love among 
the roses;” and Buckingham was the roguish valet who is usually in 
attendance on the eccentric light comedian under the circumstances 
alluded to. The worthy couple discussed the best method of raising the 
wind, and it was agreed that there was nothing left but to try it on 
again with a Parliament. “We shall have writs out against ourselves,” 
said Charles, “ if we do not get the writs out for summoning the Com¬ 
mons.” They met on the 17th of March, 1628, and several of the 
most determined opponents to ship-money were found in the new house, 
which included Bradshaw, the brewer, who was ready to brew the storm 
of revolution, as well as Maurice, a grocer, who suited the times to a T 
with his liberal sentiments. The king made a haughty speech, but the 
Parliament determined to proceed with address, and, upon the grand 
piscatorial principle of throwing a sprat to catch a herring, five subsidies 
were hinted at for the purpose of securing concessions of the utmost 


CHAP. III.] 


DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM ASSASSINATED 


159 


value to English liberty. The Petition of Right was accordingly drawn 
up, which declared the illegality of collecting money except by the 
authority of Parliament. It next referred to our old friend, your old 
friend, and everybody else’s old friend, Magna Charta, or Carter, as 
some people call it—perhaps because a broad-wheeled waggon has been 
frequently driven through it—and this document was recited to prove 
that people could not be imprisoned without cause; though, unfor¬ 
tunately for them, they had been imprisoned very frequently, in spite 
of the arrangement that made such a circumstance quite impossible. 
The Petition of Right next alluded to the billeting of soldiers on 
private houses, which had grown into such an abuse, that scarcely* a 
lamily could sit down to tea without half-a-dozen troopers dropping m 
during the meal, and pocketing the spoons, cribbing the cups, or saucily 
appropriating the saucers, when the entertainment was concluded. 

The Bill of Rights, having been drawn by the Commons, and endorsed 
by the Lords, was offered to Charles for his acceptance. Without either 
rejecting it or adopting it, he wrote under the petition a few vague 
generalities, which meant nothing at all, and the Commons, retiring to 
their Chamber, vented their indignation in a very spirited manner. 
Sir Robert Phillips uttered' several severe Philippics against the sove¬ 
reign ; Sir D. Digges followed, with some tremendous digs at the throne, 
declaring it was quite infra dig. for the Commons to sit still and do 
nothing: while Mr. Kurton, or, as that miscreant Strype calls him, 
Curtain,* threw off the veil; and even old Coke gave symptoms of 
having caught the revolutionary flame. Selden, whose table-talk is 
much more amusing than his talk at the table of the House of Commons, 
proposed a strong declaration under four heads, and w r as in the midst of 
a powerful harangue, when Finch, the Speaker, who had got the name 
of Chaff-Finch, from the badinage in which he indulged, ran breathless 
into the House with a message from the king, recommending, as well as 
his puffing and blowing would permit, an adjournment until the next 
morning. Notwithstanding the valour that had been displayed in words, the 
Commons had not yet learned how to act with courage, and they quietly 
adjourned at the suggestion of the sovereign. The next day, however, 
they met again, and having plucked up all their pluck, they continued 
to demand an explicit answer to the Petition of Right, to which the 
assent of Charles was, one fine afternoon in June, 1628, somewhat 
unexpectedly given. Buckingham, who could never keep quiet, resolved 
to make another warlike venture at Rochelle, and had got as far as 
Portsmouth, where, on the 23rd of August, says Howell, “he got out of 
bed in good-humour, and cut a caper or two ” in his nightcap and 
dressing gown. These capers were soon destined to be cut very short, 
for as the Duke was passing to his carriage in the course of the day, he 
received a stab from somebody in a crowd of gesticulating Frenchmen, 

* We regret to say, that the motive of Strype in calling this person Curtain, instead of 
Kurton, is too obvious. A jeu de mot is at the bottom of this baseness. We forbear 
from saying more. 

M 2 


160 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book VI. 


who were all suspected of being the assassins, and instead of being 
taken into custody were, oddly enough, kicked down stairs. Bucking¬ 
ham was as dead as the British and Foreign Institute, when a number 
of captains and gentlemen rushed into the kitchen of the house, 
exclaiming—“Where is the villain ?” “On est le boucher ?" Upon 
this a gentleman of the name of Felton, who had been screening 
himself in the meat-screen, stood forth, and struck an attitude, vocife¬ 
rating “ Here I am.” He then handed over his hat, in the crown of 


Felton admits that he killed the Duke. 


which he had stitched the full and true particulars of his own crime, 
which he requested might be read out, while he did the appropriate 
pantomime to the confession in the centre of a group of listeners. 
Felton gloried in the act he had committed, and when put upon his 
trial there was a good deal of badinage between himself and Judge 
Jones, whom the prisoner politely thanked for the announcement that 
he was to be hanged until he was dead, at Tyburn. 

The king was greatly affected on hearing of Buckingham’s death; 
and, according to the accounts of the period, his Majesty rolled himself 
about on his bed in an agony of tears, until nothing but a w r et blanket 



























































CHAP. III.] CROMWELL IN THE, HOUSE OF COMMONS 161 

seemed to hang over all his prospects. He nevertheless continued his 
attention to business, but he never had another favourite like Bucking¬ 
ham, whom his Majesty use to apostrophise familiarly as “ my Buck,” 
and hence that term of amiability no doubt has its origin. He admitted 
Laud to be in many respects laudable ; and of Wentworth he acknow¬ 
ledged the worth, while Noy, whose maxims contain the maximum of 
wisdom, was so far appreciated, as to get the place of Attorney-General. 

On the 30th of January, 1629, the Parliament met once more, and 
Charles turning out both his pockets, urged the necessity of supplies. 
He declared that as to his balance at his bankers, it had become like 
“ linked sweetness,” for it had been “long drawn out,” and the public 
treasury had been swept up several times, in the hope of finding an odd 
coin or two; but there was not a shilling to be found, and Charles was 
running up bills in all directions with his tradespeople. The Commons, 
instead of giving him the money to pay his debts, brought against him 
all their own old scores, and there were several stormy discussions, 
the storminess of which 
may be accounted for by 
the long-windedness of 
many of the orators. 

Among those who took 
part in these debates, was 
a clownish looking person 
of about thirty years of 
age, with a slovenly coat, 
and a hat so bad that 
Strype hints it was per¬ 
haps without a crown, to 
mark the republican ob¬ 
jection to crowns which 
was entertained by the 
owner. This individual was 
Mr. Oliver Cromwell, the 
new member for Hunting¬ 
don, who brewed beer and 
political storms, until the 
country itself became 
Cromwell’s entire, the 
Crown his butt, and the 
Constitution his mash-tub. 

Charles finding the Parliament in a very unaccommodating humour, 
desired Sir John Finch, the Speaker, to adjourn the House, but the 
House refused to be adjourned, and when he was about to leave the 
chair, he found himself suddenly knocked back into it, with his arms 
pinioned, which rendered him incapable of putting any motion whatever 
for he was quite motionless. A few privy councillors rushing in, 
endeavoured to release him, but the opposite party bound him again to 



The Member for Huntingdon. 























































L 6*2 


COMIC HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


the chair, and the trial of strength between the two factions, ended in 
a tie—as far as poor Finch was concerned—for he remained fastened in 
the seat of dignity. At length the Speaker, who could not dissolve the 
House, began dissolving himself in tears, and the king who had been 
waiting for him to come and tell the news, was so impatient, that 
messengers were dispatched to know what had become of him. Hearing 
that Finch was caged, or in other w'ords locked in, the king could only 
leave the poor bird to his fate; but he despatched a messenger to tell 
the sergeant to slip out of the house quietly with his mace, which would 
dissolve the sitting. The sergeant may perhaps have forgotten the 
right cue, but he had got the right mace, and had walked nearly to the 
door, when he was stopped and pushed back, the key of the House 
taken from him and placed in the hands of one of the members, who 
promised to keep tight hold of it. 

Charles, hearing that the door was bolted, "went down, determined to 
force it open; but happily, he found the Commons had bolted instead 
of the door, or at least, they were on the point of doing so. The king, 
nevertheless, ordered several of the ringleaders to be arrested, and he 
intimated pretty plainly to the Commons that he would not trouble them 
again for a very considerable period. He had, in fact, resolved to take 
all matters of government entirely into his own hands; and though 
Magna Charta, with a few other trifles of the kind, stood in his way, he 
did not scruple to trample on rights and liberties, which he knew were 
being continually renewed, as occasion required. 

On the 10th of March, 1629, the day to which the Commons had 
adjourned themselves, Charles came down to the House of Lords with* 
the proclamation of dissolution in his pocket. His Majesty began by 
saying, that this was “ really a very unpleasant business,” that “ he had 
no fault to find with the Lords,” but “ there were some vipers among 
the Commons; ” whom, according to the unhappy Strype, he expressed 
his determination of “ viping out ”—observe the paltry evasion of the 
W for the sake of the pun—“ with the utmost energy.” Thus, by flatter¬ 
ing the Lords and threatening the Commons, or, to continue the 
language of Strype, “ soaping the Upper House, and lathering the 
Lower,” did Charles dissolve his Parliament. Several members had 
already been placed in custody, among whom were Eliot, Holies, and 
Selden, the last of whom was such an inveterate table-talker, that his 
tongue was always getting him into scrapes of the most serious 
character. An information was exhibited against them in the Star- 
Chamber, but they were subsequently offered their release, on promising 
to be of good behaviour, which they refused to do, for they felt they 
would have been good for nothing had they entered into such a 
disgraceful compact. Eliot died in prison, and the rest were adjudged to 
be detained during the pleasure of the king, and as he took great 
pleasure in persecuting his refractory Commons, there was every chance 
that their “ durance vile ” would be unpleasantly durable 

The 29th of May, 1630, was signalised by the birth of Prince 


CHAP. III.] IMPRISONMENT OF RICHARD CHAMBERS. 163 

Charles, and it is said that a bright star shone in the east at mid-day, 
which some have considered ominous. To us, the appearance of the 
star by daylight, on the birth of this dissolute scapegrace, denotes 
nothing more than a propensity for not going home till morning, or till 
daylight did appear. About the same time that severities were being 
practised on the Commons, one Richard Chambers refused to pay more 
than legal duty on a bale of silk, and the Custom-house officers going at 
him rather fiercely, he declared that “ merchants were more screwed in 
England than they were in Turkey.” His audience hearing him use 
the word “screwed,” at once nailed him to the expression, and he was 
fined J02OOO for the lapsus Ungues he had fallen into. Unhappily, 
political martyrdom was not, in those days, so good a trade as it has 
subsequently become, and poor Chambers had neither a subscription 
opened to pay his fine, nor a testimonial to reimburse him for the 
expense of resistance. A struggle for principle was then a struggle 
indeed, and not an eligible medium for advertisements. A Chambers 
of the present day would have made his principles pay him an enormous 
per centage, and would have made a handsome fortune for himself by 
what he would have termed his exertions for the happiness and liberty 
of the people. Poor Chambers, however—the real martyr of 1630— 
died in a prison at last, after waiting for redress from the Long Parlia¬ 
ment, which was a little too long in making reparation to the victim of 
oppression. 

Charles had apparently made up his mind to get on as well as he 
could without any Parliament at all, and having bribed some of the 
cleverest fellows in the kingdom, he thought that as one fool proverbially 
makes many, one or two knaves would also be found to fructify. Among 
the shameless apostates of that day were of course many who had been 
mouthing most energetically on the popular side ; and Wentworth, who 
had been originally one of the very noisiest of the people’s friends, 
became the meanest and most inveterate of the people’s enemies. Having 
brawled for some years against aristocracy, his purpose at length peeped 
out in his acceptance of a peerage for himself, and the man who had 
been continually bullying the Court, became its fawning favourite. 
Digges, who had been, as we have already intimated, digging away most 
energetically at the constituted authorities, accepted the post of Master 
of the Rolls, for he had, as he said, made the discovery on which side 
his bread was buttered. 

It would be tedious to the reader, and difficult to ourselves, to give 
a catalogue of the exactions and impositions which were practised by 
Charles between the years 1629, when the Parliament was dissolved, 
and 1640, the year marked by the assembly of a new one. He revived, 
among other cruelties, the old practice of making Knights of all persons 
possessing forty pounds a year, and either charging ruinous fees for 
imposing the so-called honour, or imposing a heavy fine for declining it 
Knighthood became such a fearful drug in the market of dignities, that 
it is not surprising it should even up to this day have failed to recover 


3 64 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


its position. The cry of “ Dilly, dilly,” was never more ferociously 
addressed to the ducks who were invited to “come and be killed,” than 
was the command to “ come and be knighted,” enforced against the 
unwilling victims, who were selected either to pay the penalty for 
declining, or the fees on receiving this unenviable distinction. 

While guilty of wholesale persecution, Charles did not, however, 
neglect the retail branch, and a Puritan preacher named Leighton—a 
blind fanatic, but, notwithstanding his blindness, no relation we believe 
to Leighton Buzzard—was exposed to the utmost cruelty for writing 
some ad captandum trash against the Queen and the Bishops : a bom¬ 
bastic little work, which neither repaid perusal, nor repaid the printer 
who brought it forward. Poor Leighton was fined for his coarseness, 
and flogged for liis flagellation of the authorities, besides being compelled 
to undergo a variety of other barbarisms, the narration of which we 
would have attempted, but we found our very ink turning pale at the 
bare prospect of our doing so. The Puritans now began to emigrate in 
great numbers to America, and they no doubt laid the foundation of 
that drawl which has ever since distinguished the tone of the model 
republicans. 

We now arrive at the tragical story of poor Mr. William Prynne, a 
barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, who, in the utter absence of briefs, finding 
himself at a dead stand-still for want of a motion, had started a trumpery 
little work with one Sparkes, a publisher. The volume had the unattrac¬ 
tive title of “ Histrio Mastric, the Players’ Scourge, or Actors’ Tragedie,” 
in which he made an attempt to write down the stage in particular, and 
all amusements in general. He denounced all who went to the play as 
irredeemably lost, and he neither exempted the free list, the half-price, or 
those who went in with the orders of the Press, from the anathema, 
which he hurled indiscriminately against the “ brilliant and crowded 
audiences ” nightly honouring such-and-such an establishment with a 
succession of overflows. The queen not only patronised the drama, but 
sometimes appeared herself as a distinguished amateur, and the whole 
of Prynne’s book was taken to apply to her, though she was not even 
mentioned in any part of it. Poor Prynne was declared to be a wolf in 
sheep’s clothing, and, considering that he was a barrister who had turned 
author, the alleged mixture of wolfishness and sheepishness may be 
fairly attributed to his character. He was found guilty, of course, and 
upon sentence being passed, the Chief Justice expressed his regret that 
a gentleman, who had handed in on two or three occasions a compute, 
and was a promising junior of twenty years’ standing—without ever 
being on his legs—should have brought himself into such an unplea¬ 
sant predicament. 

He -was condemned to be degraded from the profession, or in fact to 
be dishonoured; to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, which was by no 
means feasible, when we consider his fees, and to be kept from the use 
of pen, ink, and paper, which was perhaps the most humane part of 
the sentence, for he was thus prevented from proceeding with his 


CHAP. III.] 


MUTILATION OF WILLIAM PRYNNE 


165 


wretched trade of authorship. The poor fellow, however, contrived to 
write humorous articles on the soles of his boots; and “Prynne on the 
Understanding,” though it was rubbed out as mere rubbish by the man 
who cleaned his boots, might have taken its place by the side of many 
more lofty productions of the period. His sentence was exceedingly 
cruel, and comprised “ branding on the forehead,” as if his enemies 
would have it believed “ there was nothing inside to hurt,” while his 
nose was savagely maltreated, to prevent its being again poked into 
that which did not concern its owner. His ears were cropped under the 
pretext of their being a great deal too long, and indeed Prynne was so 
altered, as a punishment for rushing into print, that his own clerk would 
not have known him again in the abridged edition which the Govern¬ 
ment reduced him to. 

We have now to treat of the great civil war; but the magnitude of 
the subject requires us to take breath, which we cannot do, unless we 
break off and begin a fresh chapter. 


166 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

CHARLES THE FIRST (CONTINUED.) 



he great civil war was 
brought on by a series 
of incidents we will 
now briefly explain; 
but we must premise 
that the turncoat Noy 
had been long hunt¬ 
ing for precedents to 
justify Charles in any 
course of despotism 
that he might resolve 
upon. It never was 
very difficult to find 
precedents in the 
legal records for any¬ 
thing, however cruel, 
tyrannical, or absurd, 
and Noy was not the 
man to be over nice 
in putting upon the 
cases in u the books ” 
whatever construc¬ 
tion would be most 
favourable to the 
views of his master. The ingenious Noy took care to discover 
that the supplying of ship-money by sea-ports was a custom as old 
as the hills, and giving a large interpretation to the word hills, he 
assumed that land as well as water should supply ships, and that inland 
places as well as those on the coast were consequently liable to the 
impost. He argued that almost every town, however far from the shore, 
had marine interests, for there was always a dealer in marine stores, and 
in fact he urged that a town being unable to float a ship, might never¬ 
theless be made to build or at least to pay for one. 

In the midst of these ingenious theories, and perplexing points of 
law, Noy died, which is no matter of astonishment to us, for the idea of 
looking up such a subject as ship-money, and having “ case for opinion” 
continually on his desk, is sufficiently formidable to reconcile with it the 
decease of the barrister to whom the business had been confided. London 
was selected as the first place on which the demand for ship-money was 
made, and an attempt to excite the fears of the citizens, by getting lip a 


































































CHAP. IV.] 


DISSATISFACTION OF THE PEOPLE. 


167 


cry very like that of “ Old Bogie ” was resorted to. A proclamation 
was issued declaring that a set of “ thieves, pirates, robbers of the sea, 
and Turks ” were expected by an early boat, though a sharp look-out 
along the offing at Gravesend and Richmond, through one of which the 
pirates must pass, would have convinced the greenest of the green that 
a corsair was not likely to be eating his white bait at Blackwall, nor was 
England in danger of invasion by a horde of ruffians coming up from 
the other side of the world at the Chelsea end of the metropolis. Several 
ships were ordered, but the citizens would have been quite at sea had 
they attempted to supply a ship, and a composition in money was 
demanded as an easier method of satisfying the wants of the govern 
ment. Considerable resistance was made to this gigantic swindle, and 
the celebrated John Hampden immortalised himself by the part he took 
in the struggle. This true patriot had consulted his legal advisers on 
the subject of ship-money, and hearing from them that it could not be 
justly claimed, he determined that he would resist the impost at any 
sacrifice. The matter came on for argument upon demurrer, in 
the Court of Exchequer, on the 6th of November, 1637, and lasted till 
December the 18th, when their lordships were unable to agree in their 
judgment. The majority, however, ultimately decided against Hampden, 
but two of the judges continuing to differ from the rest, it was felt that 
the imposition was seen through, and that the public would have the 
sanction of at least some of the legal dignitaries for resisting it. Went 
worth would have whipped Hampden like poor Prynne, but not all the 
black rods, white rods, and rods in pickle the Court could muster, would 
have been sufficient for the flagellation of so great a character. 

The dissatisfaction of the people, and the unconstitutional practices 
of the king, were not confined to England, for Scotland, after having 
been taken—or rather having been merged in the English monarchy— 
was destined to be well shaken by political convulsions. The proximate 
cause of the dissatisfaction of the Scotch, who are not a remarkably 
exciteable race unless their pockets are threatened, was the introduction 
of the English service into their churches; and when the Dean of 
Edinburgh began to read it on Sunday, the 23rd of July, 1637, he was 
assailed with shouts of the most indecorous character. The populace 
clapped with their hands, kicked with their heels, and bellowed with 
their lungs till the Bishop of Edinburgh, who had ascended the pulpit 
to entreat that order might be preserved, was compelled to bob down 
his head to avoid a three-legged stool that was thrown with savage force 
by one of the assembled multitude. 

The Scotch congregation continued to evince their zeal for their 
religion by throwing sticks, stones, and dirt (of which they had a good 
deal always on their hands) at the unprotected prelate, and cries of 
“stone him,” “at him again,” “give it him,” “throw him over,” 
“ turn him out,” resounded through the sacred edifice. The religious 
ruffians kept up their ferocity without intermission wherever the new 
service was commenced, and thus, though they might easily have 



188 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


satisfied their consciences by abstaining from attendance at the churches 
where innovation had been introduced, they preferred to intimidate and 



Something like Argument. 


brutally attack the inoffensive ministers. This was another of the 
innumerable instances history has to record of the name of religion 
being desecrated by its being applied to acts utterly at variance with 
every religious principle. 

Charles, who in this instance evinced a keen perception of Scotch 
character, resolved to punish the people of Edinburgh in a manner they 
would be sure to feel; and by threatening to remove the council of 
government from that city to Linlithgow, he touched them in what is 
the Scotchman’s tenderest point—his pocket. Whether it was from 
fear of a general stoppage to business, and the consequent loss of its 






































































































































































































CHAP. IV.] MARQUIS OF HAMILTON AND THE COVENANTERS. 


169 


profits, or from some more exalted cause, the Scotch desisted from 
physical violence, and took a great moral resolution, which is in every 
way respectable. A document, called the Covenant, was drawn up, and 
its sentiments were put forth with the eloquence of enthusiasm from 
the home of John O’Groat—by-the-bye, who was this Jack Fourpence, 
Esq., of whom we have heard so much?—to the hills of Cheviot. The 
Covenanters had exchanged the brickbat and bludgeon style of argument 
for the lighter but more pointed and effective weapon—the pen—though 
they still acted in the most unchristian spirit of intolerance and perse¬ 
cution towards those who would not adopt their sentiments. 

The Marquis of Hamilton was sent to Scotland with instructions to 
do all he could, and a great deal that he couldn’t. He was to apprehend 
all the rebels, if possible; but not being of a very lively apprehension, 
it was not likely he would succeed greatly in this portion of his enter¬ 
prise. He was to overturn the Covenant in six weeks, if he found it 
convenient to do so, or in less if he found it otherwise. In fact, his 
instructions might be summed up into an order to go and make the 
best of a bad job—an attempt which frequently ends in leaving a matter 
much worse than one originally found it. 

On his arrival at Holyrood his first effort to persuade the people to 
give up the Covenant was met by an attempt to cram it down his own 
throat, but he refused the profferred dose, and finding himself in a very 
awkward fix, he could only hope to temporise. Charles wrote to him to 
say, “ he would rather die than give in ; ” but Hamilton, knowing his 
master would have to die by deputy, and that the deputy would be no 
other than himself, entreated his Majesty not to be too open in his 
demonstrations of force against his Scotch subjects. The Covenanters 
on the other hand declared they meant nothing disrespectful to the 
throne, and that their pelting, shouting, bullying, stoning, and pro¬ 
testing, were all to be considered as acts performed in the most loyal 
spirit, and without the smallest idea of disobedience to the royal 
mandate. 

Some negotiations ensued between the two parties, and it was resolved 
that a General Assembly should be held in Glasgow forthwith, while a 
proclamation was issued for a Parliament to meet at Edinburgh a few 
months afterwards. Hamilton knew the Assembly would do no good, 
and wrote to the king to say so ; but Charles answered, that it would at 
all events gain time, and the Scotch might perhaps, if they met 
together in large numbers come to the scratch among themselves—a 
result that was exceedingly probable. 

The Marquis of Hamilton reached Glasgow on the 17th of November 
1638 ; and the General Assembly commenced on the 21st with a 
sermon of such tremendous length, that the audience were pretty well 
exhausted bv the time it was concluded. The assembly would have 
then chosen a moderator; but Hamilton starting up with a polite “ I 
beg your pardon,” told them there was a little Commission to read in 
order to explain by what authority he was sitting there. The Com 


170 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


mission was excessively long, and all in Latin, which enabled the officer 
entrusted with the commission of reading the Commission, to extern 
porise rather extensively, by adding to the original Latin a considerable 
quantity of Dog, which spun out the time amazingly. The assembly 
then again prepared to choose a moderator, when Hamilton starting up, 
exclaimed—“ I’m very sorry to be so troublesome, but I must interrupt 
you again, for I wish you to hear this letter from his Majesty ” 

Charles had purposely dispatched a most unintelligible scrawl, and 
the functionary employed to read it, prolonged the painful operation of 
deciphering it as long as he could, until at length the reading of the 
letter was concluded. The assembly being again about to proceed to 
elect a moderator, Hamilton once more was upon his legs, with a 
“ Dear me, you ’ll think me very tiresome, but I have really something 
very particular to sayand off he went into a speech which seemed 
almost interminable, from its excessive wordiness. 

As all things must come to a conclusion, if not to an end—Hamilton’s 
speech, for example, came to no end at all—the oration of the Marquis was 
terminated at last, and for the fourth time the Assembly had begun to 
choose a moderator, when Hamilton interfered with a—“ Stop ! stop ! 
stop! Before you go any further, remember that I protest against 
anything you may do, that will be prejudicial to the king’s prero¬ 
gative.” 

At length he was formally asked if he had quite done with his 
interruptions, and having exhausted all his resources, he was constrained 
to admit that he had no further remark to make, when the election of 
a moderator was proceeded with. Alexander Henderson, a minister of 
Fife,—which might well have been called, in the strong language of 
Shakspeare, the “ ear-piercing Fife,” for it was determined to make 
itself heard,—was chosen to the office, and Hamilton was again on his 
legs to read a protest, but a general cry of “ Down, down ! Come, come ; 
we’ve had enough of that,” prevented the Marquis from proceeding 
further in his obstructive policy. The Assembly then chose one Archi¬ 
bald Johnston as clerk, and Hamilton, determined to give the Cove¬ 
nanters one more lesson on the Hamiltonian system, commenced 
protesting against the last appointment they had made. The Marquis 
was, however, most unceremoniously pooh poohed, and the Assembly 
adjourned. 

On the next day Hamilton began the old game of entering more 
protests against the return of lay elders to the Assembly, but he was 
treated with no more respect than if he had been a lay figure, and was 
compelled to hold his tongue. Being checked in every attempt to enter 
a protest on his own account, he insisted on patronising and adopting a 
protest of the bishops who denied the jurisdiction of the Assembly, 
but one of the clerks of session thundering out a declaration that they 
would go on with their proceedings, Hamilton started up once more, 
“ begging pardon for being so very troublesome, but adding that he really 
must protest to that.’ Finding his protestations utterly useless, he 


CHAP IV. J 


DISSOLUTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 


171 


thought it better to protest to the whole thing en masse , and he accord 
ingly dissolved the General Assembly on the ensuing day. Henderson the 
moderator so called—on the Incus a non lucendo principle—from his 
being no moderator at all, declared he was sorry they were going to lose 
the pleasure of Hamilton’s company, but the Assembly being assembled 
had no intention to disperse. The Marquis, who had gone about 
muttering to himself “ Oh, you know. This is quite absurd! I’m no 
use here,” made the best of his way to England. He urged Charles to 
take military measures against the Scotch, but they were exceedingly active 
in making warlike preparations, and had got up a magazine at Edinburgh 
—no relation to Blackwood or Tait—which was full of pikes, muskets, 
halberts, and other striking but very offensive articles. In the mean time 
the coffers of Charles were standing perfectly empty, nobody in the city 
would take his paper upon any terms, and indeed he could accept no 



Charles I. does not know which way to turn. 


bills, for there was no Parliament in existence to draw the documents 
He called upon the judges, the clergy, and even the humbler servants 
of the crown, to contribute part of their salaries to his necessities—a 
process very like borrowing a portion of the wages of one’s cook to pay 
one’s butcher. 

















































































































172 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


The Covenanters had got together a tolerably large number of troops, 
under General Leslie, and Hamilton was sent with five thousand met 
to take Leith, but by the time he got into the waters of Leith(e) his 
soldiers seemed to be oblivious of their duties, for they all deserted him. 

Charles now thought it high time to go and see about the Scotch 
business himself, and he started, per coach, for York, with the Duke of 
Lennox and the Earl of Holland, as inside passengers. He was met at 
that city by the Recorder, as the coach drew up to the Inn door, and 
that functionary, in a fulsome speech, told him he had built his throne 
on two columns of diamond—the parasite forgetting that the old notion 
of “ diamond cut diamond ” might unpleasantly suggest itself. At York 
Charles exacted an oath of fidelity from the nobles, which was taken by 
all but Lords Saye and Brook, the former declaring he should be a mere 
do if he consented to say what he did not mean, and the latter inti¬ 
mating that he was far too deep a Brook to commit himself in the 
manner that the king required. 

On the 29th of April Charles left York and repaired to Durham, 
where the Bishop feasted him famously, giving him Durham mustard 
every day, as a condiment to the delicious dishes that were prepared for 
him. He next advanced to Newcastle, where the Mayor entertained 
him sumptuously; but while the king went to dinner he heard that 
many of his troops were going to desert, and by the time he got to 
Berwick he was glad to listen to a proposition for a truce, which, after a 
good deal of trumpeting on both sides, was arranged without a blow— 
except those conveyed through the trumpet—on either. 

A conference was next agreed upon, between the deputies of the 
Covenanters and the Commissioners of the king; but, just as they were 
commencing business, Charles walked in, saying, “ I am told you 
complain that you can’t be heard ! Now then, fire away, for I am here 
to hear you.” Lord Loudon, who was loud without being effective, 
began to make a speech, but the king cut him short, and Loudon, with 
all his loudness, remained inaudible during the rest of the sitting. The 
parties to the negotiation were pretty well matched, for royal roguery 
had to contend with Scotch cunning. “We must give and take,” said 
Charles; “ Yes, that’s all very well, but you want us to do nothing 
but give, that you may do nothing but take,” was the keen reply of the 
Caledonians. The assemblies of the Kirk were to be legalised, and an 
act of oblivion was to be passed, which was very unnecessary on the king’s 
side, at least, for he was very apt to forget himself. Castles, forts, 
ammunition, and even money, were to be delivered up to the king, out 
part of the money having been spent, the cunning Scotchmen accounted 
for the deficiency by saying to his Majesty, “ You can’t eat your cake 
and have it,— that is very well known; and as we have eaten your cake, 
that you can’t have it is a natural consequence.” 

Charles was puzzled, though not quite convinced, by this reasoning; 
but he thought it best to acquiesce for the sake of peace and quietness 
in all the proposed arrangements The two armies were disbanded on 


CHAP. IV.] CHARLES DISSOLVES THE PARLIAMENT. 173 

the 24th of June, and Charles having stopped at Berwick to buy a 
Tweedish wrapper, returned to England. The king was now seized 
very seriously with a fit of his old complaint—the want of money—and 
he called in Laud and Hamilton to consult with Wentworth about a 
cure for the distressing malady. It was agreed, after some hesitation, 
to try another Parliament, and Wentworth suggested that an Irish 
Parliament might be tried first, upon which he was named Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland, with the title of Earl of Strafford, to give him 
more weight in making the experiment. The Irish Parliament promised 
four subsidies off-hand, and two more if required; but an Irish promise 
to pay, is little better than a bill without a stamp, a promissory note 
without a date, or an I. O.U. without a signature. 

At length on the 13th of April, 1640, the English Parliament met, 
and it contained many eminent men, among whom Hampden, who sat 
for the town of Buckingham, was one of the most conspicuous. Finch, 
who had been formerly Speaker, was now Lord Keeper, a position he 
was most anxious to keep, and Mr. Serjeant Glanvil was chosen to fill 
the Speaker’s chair, upon which he made a long tedious speech that 
annoyed every one by its premises, as much as it gratified every one by 
its conclusion. The debates very soon assumed a most important air; 
and Pym, who from his effeminate voice had got the name of Niminy 
Pyminy from some parasites of the king, held forth with wondrous 
power, on the subject of national grievances. Charles, who hated the 
word grievance—it is a pity he did not abhor and avoid the act—ordered 
Parliament to attend him next day in the Banqueting Hall, not to give 
them an opportunity of filling their mouths, but for the purpose of stopping 
them. Charles said nothing himself, but set Finch at them, who told 
them that they must first vote the supplies, and that then they might 
luxuriate in their grievances to their hearts’ content, and having given 
the king his cash, they would be at liberty to look out for their own 
consolation. The Commons were not to be so cajoled, and on the 30th 
of April, resolved themselves into a committee of the whole House on 
the question of ship-money. 

The Lords, who were servile to the king, no sooner heard of this 
than they sent down to request a conference, but the Commons, who 
could get no satisfactory answer to the questions “ why ” and “ what 
about ? ” of course, on seeing the trap, declined tumbling into it. In 
vain did Charles send down to say he had a large amount to make up, 
and would be glad to know when it would be convenient to let him have 
“that subsidy,” and even Sir Henry Vane, his treasurer, came—it 
can’t be helped, the wretched pun must out—Yes ! even Vane presented 
himself in vain to know when the supplies would be ready. The usual 
mode of getting rid of a pertinacious dun was resorted to by saying, 
that an answer should be sent; and on the 5th of May, 1640, Charles, 
having asked the Speaker to breakfast, and as some say, made him 
exceedingly drunk, ran down to the House of Lords and dissolved the 
Parliament. 

VOL. II. * 


174 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK Vf 


The state of the money-market was now truly frightful, and the 
emissaries of Charles ran about in all directions crying out “ Cash ! 
Cash! We must have Cash! ” in every direction. Bullion was got 
from the Tower by bullying the people who had charge of it, and when 
no more good money was to be got, a proposition for coining four hun¬ 
dred thousand pounds’ worth of bad was coolly suggested. “ By Jove ! ” 
said the king, “ when we can’t snow white, we must snow brown, and if 
we can’t snow silver, we must snow copper.” Such snow would however 
have been equivalent to its Latin appellation of nix, and the merchants 
foreseeing the danger of depreciating the coinage, prevented the uttering 
of base money, which would have been a source of unutterable confusion. 
The swindling resorted to for supplying the necessities of the king was 
something quite unsurpassed even in the annals of the most modern of 
fraudulent bankruptcies. Charles got goods on credit at a high price, 
and sold them for ready money at a low one; horses were lugged out of 
carriages or carts, leaving the owners to draw their own vehicles and 
their own conclusions; and indeed the king’s emissaries went about like 
a clown in a pantomime, appropriating and pocketing everything they 
could lay their hands upon. “ See what I’ve found ” was a common 
cry at the snatching of a purse or anything else for the use of the king, 
and the example of robbery being set in high quarters, was sure to be 
followed in low with the utmost activity. The London apprentices 
were invited by a posting-bill stuck upon the Loyal Exchange to a soiree 
at Lambeth, for the purpose of sacking the palace of the archbishop, 
but Laud was ready with cannon, loaded with grape, and the apprentices 
muttering that the grapes were sour, abandoned their formidable in¬ 
tention. 

Hostilities with Scotland having again broken out, Charles had his 
hands quite full, and his pockets quite empty. The disputants on both 
sides were ultimately glad to come to another truce, for they found 
themselves after a great deal of fighting exactly where they were before 
they began, except some of the killed and wounded, who, unfortunately 
for them, were anything but just as they were at the commencement of 
the contest. The Scots were to receive, according to treaty, the sum of 
£850 per day for two months, and Charles, wandering where the money 
was to come from, recollected that the Commons had the glorious 
privilege of voting the supplies, together with the glorious privilege of 
raising the money 


CHAP. V.] 


CHARLES OPENS THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 


175 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 

CHARLES THE FIRST (CONCLUDED). 

Such an unfortunate sovereign as Charles is a melancholy subject to 
dwell upon, hut we must not cut him short though his contemporaries 
cruelly served him so. With a melancholy foreboding of what was to 
come, the king, on the 3rd of November, 1640, opened the Long Parlia 
ment. One of its earliest acts was to release from prison our learned 
friend Mr. Prynne, and to give him £5000 damages for his detention. 
On hearing the decision he declared he would live no longer like a 
Prynne, but like a Prince ; and by way of a beginning he came down 
one flight of stairs, and had “ 2 pair, Mr. Prynne,” instead of “ 3 pair, 
Mr. Prynne,” marked on the door-post of his chambers. 

Strafford, who felt that his turn would very soon come, remained out 
of town as long as he could, under the idea that, in conformity with the 
proverb, “ out of sight out of mind,” the Commons, if they did not see 
him, would never think of him. Charles however wrote to him, telling 
him that “ to keep so long out of sight he must, indeed, he out of his 
mind,” and insisted on his coming up to town to take his place in 
Parliament. He had scarcely entered the House of Lords before Mr. 
Pym appeared at the bar to impeach Thomas Earl Strafford in the 
name of all the Commons of England. The Earl was taken to the 
Tower; and the chief secretary, Windebank, had he not discovered 
something in the wind, which caused him to take to flight, would 
assuredly have been obliged to follow the favourite, or even to come in 
with him neck and neck, which means, in this instance, neck or nothing 
Finch, the Lord Keeper, was next proceeded against, but, having made 
one speech in his own defence, he availed himself of the natural qualities 
of the Finch family, by taking to flight, or to speak more charac 
teristically, he “ hopped the twig,” and fled to Holland. Several others 
were threatened with Parliamentary vengeance, and Berkeley was 
actually arrested while sitting as a Peer in his ermine, which he 
said had been done because the mob had resolved to und-ermine the 
Constitution. 

On the 19th of January, 1641, Mr. Prideaux brought in a bill to 
regulate the holding of Parliaments. Its object was to provide for 
their being summoned by the Lords in case of the refusal ol the king, 
or by the Sheriffs in default of the Lords, or on the failure of King, 
Lords, and Sheriffs, the thing was to be done by the people. There 
was, by this measure, to be a new Parliament once in three years, which 
was allowing rather amply for wear and tear; and though Charles was 
very reluctant, he ultimately gave his consent to the arrangement 
Those very ill-used gentlemen, the Bishops, who are always selected as 

n 2 


176 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


a mark when the spirit of revolution is abroad taking random shots at 
everything venerable, were of course not allowed on this occasion to 
escape, and the Commons voted them most unceremoniously out of 
Parliament. 

The great event of the session, however, was the trial of Lord 
Strafford, who on the morning of Monday, the 22nd of March, boated it, 
or rather barged it, up from the Tower to Westminster. Everything, 
even the tide was against him, and the Earl of Arundel, who was 
notoriously his enemy, acted as High Steward at the trial. The 
impeachment contained twenty-eight articles, every one of them being 
capital, so that if Strafford had possessed twenty heads, it is quite clear 
that the deep revenge of his accusers “had stomach for them all.” 
Strafford’s reply was written out on two hundred sheets of paper, but a 
good bold text hand must have been employed, for the two hundred 
sheets, as well as the articles of impeachment, were all got through on 
the first day of the trial. 

It is rather a strange way of proceeding to take the reply before 
hearing evidence in support of the charge ; but such was the practice on 
this momentous occasion. Arundel next called upon the managers of 
the Commons to bring forward their proofs, and Pym began a very 
roundabout address in the fashion of the period. The speech of Pym 
was a reiteration of the charges in the Impeachment, served up with a 
garniture of his own eloquence. Strafford declared it was a conspiracy, 
of course, for it is a curious fact that the most flagrant criminals have 
always been—if they are to be believed, which we need scarcely say they 
are not—the victims of a cruel combination against injured innocence. 
Strafford asked for time to plead, but he had not taken out a summons 
in the regular way, and accordingly only half-an-hour was awarded him. 
He nevertheless made such good use of this short time, that he mad 9 
a capital speech, and concluded with a puzzle almost as good as the old 
original inquiry, with reference to the red herring and the sack of coals.* 
“ For if,” said he, “ the one thousand misdemeanors will not make a 
felony, how will twenty-eight misdemeanors make a treason ?” 

The trial was continued from day to day, and on the 10th of April 
Pym walked knowingly up to the bar with a variety of nods and winks, 
to intimate that he had a matter of vast importance to communicate. 
The assembly having ordered the door to be locked to prevent intrusion 
—as if the housemaid might have wandered in with her broom— 
there was a general cry of “Now then, what is it? Let’s have it out 
without all this mystery.” Pym hereupon produced a copy of notes 
taken at a meeting of the privy council in which Strafford w r as reported 
to have told the king that he was “ absolved and loosed from all rule 
and government.” The point was considered a strong one ; but if 
Strafford had told Charles he was the Emperor of Morocco, and might 
turn all his subjects into morocco slippers by trampling them under his 

* Every one knows, or ought to know the question of the arithmetical enthusiast:— 

“ It a red herring costs three-halfpence, what will a sack of coals come to ?” Ans.— Ashes. 


CHAP. V.] BILL OF ATTAINDER PASSED AGAINST STRAFFORD. 177 

feet, the ministers having merely said so would not have made the fact, 
and he could not have been liable for it unless it had really happened. 
Verba non acta seemed, however, to be the motto of his judges, who 
took the word for the deed in numerous instances. Strafford having 
made the best answer he could to this part of the charge, was told by 
Arundel, that if he had anything more to say, the sooner he said it the 
better, for his judges were very anxious to have the pleasure of con¬ 
demning him. The fact was, that the customary sympathy of English¬ 
men for a poor fellow in a mess, was beginning to show itself, and the 
Commons feared that the trial would not “ keep ” a great deal longer if 
they did not speedily make an end of it. The matter was accordingly 
hurried on, and on the 21st of April, the bill of attainder passed the 
Commons by a very large majority. The numbers were 204 against 
59, which of course did not include the “ tellers,” for if it had done so, 
Hume, Hallam, and the rest of us, must have been comprised, for we 
are all of us the “ tellers ” of this sad story. 

When the bill went up to the Peers, their Lordships were not at all 
in a hurry to despatch it, and the Commons kept sending up messages 
to know “How about that little Bill,” and begging that the Upper 
House would immediately settle it. It was rumoured that Strafford 
intended to escape, but it was rather idle to speculate upon the inten¬ 
tions of a man who was utterly unable to accomplish them. He offered 
a bribe of twenty-two thousand pounds to Balfour, the Lieutenant of the 
Tower; but that virtuous individual scorned the filthy dross, though 
some brute who has no appreciation of the great and good, has hinted 
that Balfour either expected more, or was afraid that what was offered 
would not be forthcoming. 

Charles, who was very anxious to make the favourite safe, though the 
odds were terribly against him, sent for the Lords and Commons, whom 
he begged, when drawing up their sentence, to draw it as mild as 
possible. He said he had listened to the evidence, and he really did 
not see how they could commit the Earl. But Pym replied, sotto voce , 
that “ none are so blind as those who won't see and Charles could 
elicit nothing satisfactory. At the next sitting of the Parliament a 
furious mob was collected outside, and the Lords naturally expressed 
their disinclination to being bullied into haste on the subject of the bill 
of attainder. Upon this, one Dr. Burgess, who had some weight with 
the people, went out to disperse them, and though he said some sharp 
things which caused that intolerable nuisance—a wag—to cry out, 
“ Come, Burgess, none of your sauce,” he succeeded in his object. 

The state of nervous agitation in which the whole country was 
plunged at about this period may be conceived by a little anecdote which 
is told on the best authority—that is to say, the best that happens to be 
available. Sir Walter Earl was in the midst of a cock-and-bull story 
about some plot that had been hatching to make a sort of Girandola of 
the Parliament, by blowing it up with a splendid display of fire-works, 
in the midst of which the Speaker was to have gone off like a Jack in 


178 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


the Box, when the members, who were shivering and shaking like a 
grove of aspens, were startled by the following incident:—Two very 
corpulent members happening to stand upon one plank, which was 
rather the worse for wear, caused the floor to crack, and the Commons 
thought it was all up, or rather all down, with them. The utmost con¬ 
fusion prevailed, and somebody at once started off to fetch the train- 
bands, who acted as the police of the period. It turned out to be a 
false alarm, or to speak more correctly, a real alarm resting on false 
premises, for the flaw in the floor had been the cause of this not 
altogether groundless terror. 

On the 7th of May the Lords passed the bill of attainder against 
Strafford, as well as another bill, abrogating the power of the king to 
dissolve the Parliament. The House was thin, and it may have hap¬ 
pened that the recent accident with the two fat members in the Commons 
operated as a warning to corpulent Peers not to attend till their locus 
standi had been looked to by the carpenter. 

It now remained to be seen whether Charles would give his consent 
to the execution of the favourite, and poor Strafford feeling that his life 
hung upon a thread, sent a long yarn, in the shape of a letter, to his 
royal master. The king summoned his privy council to advise him what 
step to take, when honest Jack Juxon, the plain-sailing Bishop of London, 
exclaimed, bluntly, “ I’ll tell you what it is, Your Majesty; if you’ve 
any doubts about his guilt don’t you go and sign his bill of attainder for 
all the Bills—no, nor the Bobs—nor the Dicks, in Christendom.” 
Others, however, gave him opposite advice, and the scene ended by his 
resolving to give his assent, though he did so with his pocket hand¬ 
kerchief before his eyes, but whether from emotion or a cold in his head, 
is still an “open question” with all historians. On the 12th of May, 
1641, poor Strafford met his doom with such heroic fortitude that, though 
he became shorter by a head in a physical sense, his moral stature was 
considerably heightened in the eyes of posterity. 

The death of Strafford was the signal for the abandonment of office 
by several of his friends, who thought it better to live with resignation 
than die with resignation at this very trying juncture. Bills were passed 
for abolishing the Star-Chamber, and the Court of High Commission, as 
well as for preventing the Parliament from being dissolved, except by 
its own consent; so that Charles became like a king in a game of 
skittles, whose downfall was only a question of time and circumstance. 

Being dreadfully in want of a little loyalty to comfort him, and finding 
very little in England—and that of the weakest kind—the Sovereign 
paid a visit to Scotland, where he knew he could have as much as he 
wanted, if he chose to pay for it. His visit to that country was fast 
coming to a close when news reached him of a rebellion in Ireland, 
where the descendants of the early settlers, who were for settling every 
body, and had taken the name of the “ Lords of the Pale,” were causing 
numbers to “ kick the bucket.” 

The republican spirit had now broken out in full force; and the more 


CHAP. V.] 


BATTLE OF EDGE HILL. 


179 


the king went on doing what he was asked, the more the Commons went 
on being dissatisfied. At length he determined to try a bit of firmness, 
and walked into the House of Commons one morning to demand the im¬ 
peachment of five members, two of whom were Pym and Hampden. 
Charles entered the assembly quite alone, and walking up to the chair 
of the Speaker, who had risen on the lung’s arrival, his Majesty glided 
into it. He stated that he had come to take the five members into 
custody : but there was something so derogatory in the idea of “ every 
monarch his own policeman,” that the Commons were rather disgusted, 
and greeted him with shouts of “ Privilege ! Privilege !” 

Having made up his mind that “ this sort of thing would not do,” he 
determined to go out of town, and repaired to York, where he was soon 
joined by a party of volunteers more select than numerous. Charles 
was in that state of cashlessness so often ascribed by history to kings, 
who, nominally possessed of a crown, are positively not worth a shilling. 

He had sold his wife’s jewels, and laid out the produce in arms and 
ammunition, which he gave out as far as they would go to his few 
friends ; but the distribution was a mournful business. There were 
scarcely swords enough to go round, and the gunpowder was served out 
in little packets like so many doses of salts to the small band of royalists. 
They mustered the money for a manifesto, in which Essex, one of his 
apostate generals, was denounced in very large type ; and the king 
having corrected the proof of the poster, ordered one hundred to be 
worked off and stuck up at the earliest opportunity. His Majesty and 
suite—which Strype tells us was short and suite—repaired to Nottingham, 
where the cause of the sovereign got a sort of lift by the hoisting of the 
royal standard. 

When Charles found it necessary to draw the sword, he felt that he 
had nothing else to draw, for his funds were quite exhausted. Every¬ 
thing seemed to go against him, and even the elements themselves were 
unfavourable, for the standard which his friends had found it so difficult 
to hoist, was blown down, and came rattling through a skylight on to the 
heads of the royalists. The civil war had now regularly commenced, and 
the first battle was fought at Edge Hill, in Warwickshire, where Prince 
Rupert—the inventor of mezzotinto engraving—left the print of his 
sword, and several proofs of his valour, on the ranks of the King’s 
enemies. After fighting all day the two armies put up for the night, 
and facing each other the next morning, they evidently did not like each 
other’s looks, for both parties retired. Had the King’s troops gone to 
London, they might have done some good, but they loitered about 
Reading, and by the time they got to Turnham Green it was occupied 
by 24,000 men, though where they managed to tume’m in at Turnham 
Green, is somewhat mysterious.* 

On the 15th of April, the parliamentarians invested Reading, but 
the king having nothing to invest, could not compete for this eligible 

* It seems more probable that the 24,000 parliamentary troops were stationed in 
London than that so many were crammed into the little suburb specified. 


180 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


investment. Essex, who had managed the transaction, did not continue 
long a holder, but fell back to Thame, where a skirmish took place that 
would have been literally a tame affair if the illustrious Hampden had 
not perished in the melee. 

Essex was one of the worst men possible to be chosen as a leader, for 
he had an unconquerable propensity to gib—which was the only invinci¬ 
bility he possessed—and he was consequently falling back whenever he 
should have been going forward. He had gibbed from Reading to 
Thame, and he now gibbed again from Thame to London, where it 
became a saying among the common people, “ Oh that’s Essex: I know 
him by the cut of his jib.” 

The civil war continued to rage with varying success until the Battle 
of Marston Moor, where the royalists, under Prince Rupert, sustained 
a defeat they never after recovered, 
and the only use they could make 
of their right and left wing, was 
to fly for safety. After this re¬ 
verse, Charles attempted to get up 
a treaty called the Treaty of Ux 
bridge, which after twenty days of 
wrangling between the Commis¬ 
sioners of the Parliament and 
those sent by the king—the for¬ 
mer wanting everything, and the 
latter conceding nothing — fell 
completely to the ground. Crom¬ 
well had contrived that Sir 
Thomas, now Lord Fairfax, should 
be appointed General of the Par¬ 
liamentary Army, so that the res¬ 
ponsibility of failure should rest 
upon that individual; while the 
wily brewer, who knew how to 
take his measures, would have 
artfully secured the merit of any 
success for himself. The Battle 
of Naseby was the last decisive blow, which, in the graphic words of 
one of our early writers, “ put the nasal organ of royalty completely out 
of joint.” Charles behaved very gallantly, and so did Rupert; but 
when the former cried out to his cavalry “ One charge more and we 
win the day! ” he might just as well have exclaimed, “ Twopence more, 
and up goes the donkey,” for his words produced no effect. “ Thank 
you, we’ve had enough of it,” seemed to be imprinted on every 
countenance; and after a few more reverses, Charles formed the rash 
deliberation of throwing himself upon the generosity of the Scotch. 

He might just as well have thrown himself on the pavement beneath 
the Monument, as the sequel proved; for the Scotch at once set to 



Trained Band. Soldier of the Period. 


































CHAP. V.] CROMWELL BLOCKADES THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE. 


181 


work to see what profit was to be made by the sale of the royal fugitive 
After a good deal of haggling, they sold the sovereign, who had thrown 
himself upon their generosity, for four hundred thousand pounds ; and 
they no doubt silenced their consciences—if they ever had any—by 
saying, “It’s just a matter of beesness, ye ken,” to any one who 
remonstrated with them upon their mercenary baseness. 

The royal prisoner was shut up for some weeks at Holmby Castle, in 
Northamptonshire, but after a few weeks Cromwell sent one Joyce, for¬ 
merly his tailor and afterwards a cornet in Fairfax’s troop of horse, to 
“ smug ” the unhappy king and carry him to the army. 

The House of Commons became exceedingly jealous of the military 
influence that prevailed, but the people rather sided with the soldiers ; 
for the parliament had, of course in its great love of liberty, taken the 
liberty to lay on taxes to an extent unprecedented in the annals of royal 
rapacity. It is a fact worth remembering, that the people frequently find 
their friends more costly than their enemies. 

In the autumn of 1647, the king was sent to Hampton Court, where 
he was allowed some indulgencies, such as going out to spend the day 
at Sion House, where two of his children were remaining as parlour 
boarders with the Duke of Northumberland. Some Puritans having 
given indications of their imagining that they had a spiritual call to do 
some mischief to the king, his Majesty resolved not to be at home to 
such a call if he could possibly help it, and leaving Hampton Court 
with three attendants he reached the coast of Hampshire. It was 
noticed at the time that Charles had probably heard of the celebrated 
Hampshire hogs, and fancied therefore that Hampshire must be the 
best place for him to go to in the hope of saving his bacon. He resigned 
himself to Colonel Hammond, the Governor of the Isle of Wight, who 
placed the royal fugitive in Carisbrook Castle; where a bowling-green 
was arranged and a summer-house built, so that Charles could fancy 
himself, if he liked, in a surburban tea-garden. The king was a capital 
bowler, and when sorrow came across his mind he w T ould try and “ drown 
it in the bowls ” which Colonel Hammond was so good as to provide 
him with. 

In the September of 1648, another conference was attempted, and 
Charles took a furnished lodging at a private house in Newport, where 
the commissioners came to consult with him. They found him much 
altered, and with his hair so grey as to bespeak the fact that care had 
been busy in peppering his head, which he declared had got into that 
state during his anxious sojourn at Oxford; and this peculiar combination 
of tints retains to this day the title of the Oxford Mixture. 

The Parliament would have been glad to diminish the influence of 
the army by a successful negotiation with the king; but while terms 
were being discussed, Cromwell, who never brewed half-and-half, struck 
a blow at both parties. He sent one of his draymen named Pride, who 
had risen from a seat on the shafts of his dray to a colonelcy in the army, 
to blockade the Parliament-house with a body of troops, and let in only 


182 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


those members who were favourable to the views of his late employer. 
We, who cannot imagine Barclay or Perkins going the entire in the 
style of their predecessor in trade, nor conceive Meux and Co. meddling 
with the Crown, except to supply it with beer, are of course astonished 
at the insolence of Cromwell. He nevertheless gained his point, for he 
set the Parliament at defiance, and had the king removed to Hurst 
Castle, in Hampshire, which was so dull that Charles could not help 
remarking that coming to Hurst was like going to be buried. He was 
again removed to Windsor, and subsequently to St. James’s palace, where 
the guards were ordered to call him Charles Stuart, in order to show 
the magnanimity of the revenge of such a man as Cromwell. The king 
was exposed to every petty insult that littlemindedness could suggest or 
coarse brutality execute. In this respect the “ liberals ” of England in 
1649 set an example which the “liberals” of France followed in the 
treatment of their own fallen and powerless sovereign upwards of a cen¬ 
tury afterwards. The only comfort he enjoyed was the society of poor 
old Jack Juxon, the bishop who had been faithful to him in all his 
adversity. 

It was now determined to bring the king to trial, and on the 20th of 
January the proceedings commenced in Westminster Hall, when upon 
its being declared that Charles was accused in the name of the people, a 
shrill voice exclaimed “Pooh, pooh! not a tenth part of them.” The 
ushers looked in vain to see who was disturbing the audience, and the 
soldiers w r ere ordered to fire into the corner whence the voice proceeded, 
until it turned out that Lady Fairfax was the individual by whom the 
proceedings had been interrupted. She was a warm politician, and with 
her husband had espoused the parliamentary cause, but was disgusted 
like him with the brutal use that the “ liberals ” were making of their 
triumph. Charles demurred to the jurisdiction of his judges for 
three days, but, on the 27th, they found him guilty, and sentenced him 
to be beheaded three days afterwards. The “ people,” imitating the 
conduct of some of their “ friends,” insulted the fallen monarch in his 
misfortune, and many a malicious, low-bred ass, tried to get a kick at 
the chained lion. Happily the people in our own days are very superior 
to the people of the time of Charles, and there is no sympathy among 
the masses with ungenerous persecution, whatever may be the rank of 
the victim. 

As Charles quitted the hall after his conviction, a wretched miscreant 
displayed a toad-like venom by spitting in the king’s face, which drew 
from the sovereign the true remark, “ Poor souls! they would treat 
their generals in the same manner for sixpence.” While chronicling an 
act disgraceful to human nature, we must not forget to put down what 
is on the credit side—namely, a blessing instead of an insult from one 
of the guard, who was struck to the ground for giving way to this 
creditable impulse. 

We draw a veil over the closing scene, for our history is not a register 
of murders ; but whoever reads attentively the details of the sacrifice of 


CHAP. V.] 


EXECUTION . OF CHARLES I. 


183 


Charles I. will see the original of one of the darkest scenes in the 
French Revolution. 

The death-warrant for the execution of Charles the First, was signed 
by fifty-nine of his judges, the list beginning with the name of John 
Bradshaw, and ending with that of Miles Corbet. Few of them rose to 
much distinction, and still fewer have left descendants capable of acquiring 
fame, for there is scarcely a renowned patronymic in the entire catalogue. 
A man in a visor performed the murderous ceremony of striking off the 
king’s head; and we cannot be surprised that the executioner was ashamed 
to show his face on such an occasion. 

Though the nation had stood by, in the most apathetic manner, while 
the mischief was doing, it was no sooner done, than everybody became 
very indignant and very sorrowful. Women went into fits, men took to 
drinking, and some went so far as to commit suicide rather than survive 
their murdered sovereign. This sympathy was all peculiarly English, 
and, in fact, a little too much so ; for it is the fault of our countrymen to 
make a great deal too much of the dead and far too little of the living. 
Neglect, or even starvation, is frequently the fate of one who, after his 
decease, has his merits recognised by subscription and a monument. 
Genius not unfrequently asks in vain for bread when living, but when 
dead gets a stone awarded him. 

Charles was in the 49th year of his age, and the 24th of his reign, 
when he was brought to the scaffold. We regret that w r e cannot give a 
favourable character to this unfortunate person out of place—for he cer¬ 
tainly was completely out of place on the throne of England. His disposi 
tionwas mixed, like human nature in general; and indeed, whatis mankind, 
as the philosopher would ask, but the “ mixture as before ” incessantly 
repeated ? He was dignified, it is true, but so is the representative of 
the “ fifth noble ” or “ tenth senator, ” in an opera or play, and he was 
temperate also to an extent that might have fitted him for the chair of 
a tee-total lodge, but not for the throne of a vast empire. He was not 
avaricious, but if he spent money freely it was because he freely helped 
himself to the money of other people. He w r as humane to such an 
extent, that “ he would not have hurt a flybut it may be said that a fly 
never did him any harm, and hostility therefore, to that imbecile insect, 
would have been at once brutal and undignified. The man who would hurt 
a fly, must indeed be very hard up for a victim to his malevolence, and 
Charles cannot, therefore, have much credit given him for his amiability 
towards that humble member of the class of diptera. The manners of 
Charles were not much in his favour; “but it would not have mattered 
much,” says the incorrigible Strype, “that he was a bit of a bear, had 
he been otherwise bearable.” 

In a commercial country, like ours, his swindling propensities will 
always tell against him, and his insatiable desire to obtain money, under 
false pretences, was quite unworthy of his exalted station, or, indeed, of 
any station but that where the police are paramount. It is true, that 
his subjects would have kept him rather hard up for cash; and he often 


184 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


declared that the Long Parliament reduced him repeatedly to very 
short commons. Hume has endeavoured to give Charles the reputation 
of being a man of “probity and honour;” but it must have been the 
sort of honour said to prevail among thieves, for when he could not get 
money by honest means—which he seldom could—he never scrupled 
to rob for it. 

In person, Charles had a sweet but melancholy expression, a sort of 
aqro dolce, which made his portrait not quite a Co.rlo Dolce to look 
upon. His features were regular, but he was not vain ; and he would 
often say or think “ that he should not care about a regular nose or 
chin, so that he could make both ends meet by having a regular salary.” 
He was an excellent horseman; but it is one thing to be skilful in the 
management of the bridle, and another to be adroit in holding the reins of 
power. His equestrian accomplishments would have been useful to him 
had fate thrown him into another circle, where his favourite Buckingham, 
as clowm to the ring, would also have been in his proper position. 

The men of letters of Charles’s reign were numerous and illustrious. 
Ford, the dramatist, whose depth it is difficult to fathom; Ben Jonson, 
surnamed the Rare, and as it has been prettily said by somebody, “ the 
rarer the better; ” with Philip Massinger, belonged to the period. 
Speed, the topographer, commonly called the “ slow coach;” Burton, 
the famous anatomist of melancholy, and familiarly known as the sad 
dog; Spelman, whose writings possess no particular spell; Cotton, who 
has furnished a lot of printed stuffs ; and a few others, constituted the 
literary illuminators of the age, by their moral and intellectual moulds 
dips, or rushlights. 


cnAr vi.j 


HAMILTON, HOLLAND, AND CAPEL BEHEADED. 


185 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH. 

THE COMMONWEALTH. 

The king being now dead, the republican beggars were on horseback, 
and began at a rapid pace the ride whose terminus we need not men¬ 
tion. On the 5th of February, 1649, a week after the execution of 
Charles, the Commons had the impudence to vote the House of Peers 
“ both useless and dangerous.” One of the next steps of the lower 
House was to vent a sort of brutal malignity upon unfeeling objects, and 
having no longer a king to butcher, it was resolved to break up all his 
statues. The Commons thought, no doubt, to pave the way to a republic 
by macadamizing the road with the emblems of royalty. 

Considerable discussion has been raised upon the question of the 
right of a nation to decapitate its king; and, of course, if the people 
may do as they please with their own, they may do anything. The 
judgment of posterity has very properly pronounced a verdict of 
“ Wilful Murder ” against the regicides, and we have no wish to disturb 
this very fair decision. It is very unlikely that a similar state of things 
will ever arise again in England; but, if such were to be unhappily the 
case, there are, in these enlightened times, numerous pacific and humane 
modes of meeting the emergency. “ Between dethroning a prince and 
punishing him, there is,” as Hume well observes, “ a wide difference 
and unless the professed humanity-mongers should get fearfully ahead— 
unless the universal philanthropists should gain an ascendancy over 
public opinion—there is no fear that lungs or aristocrats will ever be 
butchered again, for the promotion of “ universal love ” and “ brother¬ 
hood.” 

When Charles was no more, the republicans continued to show their 
paltry malevolence by making insulting propositions as to the disposal 
of his family. It was suggested that the Princess Elizabeth should be 
bound apprentice to a button-maker ; but the honest artificer to whom 
the proposal was made generously hoped that his buttons might be 
dashed before he became a party to so petty an arrangement. Happily 
for the princess, death, by making a loop-hole for her escape, saved her 
from being reduced to the necessity of making buttons. 

A Committee of Government had been hitherto sitting at Derby 
House, which was now changed into the Executive Council, with 
Bradshaw, as president, and Milton, the poet, as his secretary: the 
latter having being employed no doubt on account of his powerful 
imagination to conceive some possible justification for the conduct of the 
regicides. Duke Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Capel, the last of 
whom had bounded away like a stag, but was seized at the corner of 
Capel Court, were all tried and beheaded. 


186 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


The usual consequences of the triumph of the “ great cause of liberty,” 
as advocated by noisy demagogues, and of the ascendancy of the soi- 
disant friends of the people, very soon became evident. It was declared 
treason to deny the supremacy of Parliament, which might indeed lay 
claim to supremacy in oppression, pride, and intolerance. The 
“ freedom of the press” was completely stopped; and, in fact, there 
was the customary direct antagonism between principle and practice 
which too frequently marks the conduct of the hater of all tyranny except 
his own, and the ardent friend of his kind, which is a kind that we do 
not greatly admire. 

The king’s eldest son was proclaimed as Charles II., in Scotland 
and Ireland, which caused Cromwell to say, “ I must go and see about 
that,” and to start at once for Dublin. Having done considerable 
damage, notwithstanding the resistance of some of the Irish youth, 
who went by the name of the Dublin Stout, he left his son-in-law, 
Ireton, to look after Ireland, thinking, perhaps, he would be acceptable 
from the semi-nationality of his name, while he himself returned to England. 
He took up his abode in London, at a place called the Cockpit, where 
he was visited by several persons of consequence; and the new lord of 
the Cockpit enjoyed the Gallic privilege of having a good crow upon 
his own dunghill. 

Montrose now made an attempt in Scotland in favour of Charles II., 
but being defeated, he fled and sought refuge with a Scotch friend, who, 
of course, sold him for what he would fetch, and made two thousand 
pounds by the business transaction. Poor Montrose was hanged at 
Edinburgh, on a gallows thirty feet high, which justifies us in saying 
that cruelty was carried to an immense height, on this deplorable 
occasion. Charles himself now took the field, having landed at the 
Frith of Cromarty, and had collected a tolerably large army under 
Lesley. Cromwell instantly started for Scotland, with a considerable 
force, and attacked the royalists at Dunbar, where he encouraged his 
own troops by a quantity of religious cant, which contrasted strangely 
with the sanguinary nature of his object. After cutting to pieces all 
that fell in their way, the Puritan humbugs set to at psalm-singing with 
tremendous vehemence. This mixture of butchery and bigotry was 
one of the most disgusting characteristics of Cromwell and his ferocious 
followers. Charles, having fled towards the Highlands, intended 
leaving Scotland; but some people there asked him to stop and take a 
bit of dinner, with the promise of a coronation in the evening. 

The reunion took place, but it was rather dull, and Charles deter 
mined to make his way towards England. Cromwell resolved to pursue 
him, and this active friend of religion and humanity, having met a few 
royalists on the road, deliberately “ cut them to pieces.” On the 3rd of 
September, 1651, the Battle of Worcester was fought, with success to 
the republican force; and poor Charles was obliged to escape as well as 
he could by assuming a variety of disguises, though how he got the 
extensive wardrobe his dramatic assumptions entailed a necessity for, 


CHAP. VI.] CROMWELL DISSOLVES THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 


187 


is not quite obvious. He arrived at Shoreham, near Brighton, in a 
footman’s livery, and the “ lad with the white cockade,” as the old song 
called him, obtained a situation in a coal barge, in which he was carried 
to France. The captain of the collier must have been an odd sort of 
person, to take a footman with him on the voyage, but perhaps the coal- 
heavers of that day were more refined than they are at present. 

Cromwell was triumphantly received in London, and the cloven foot 
soon began to peep out from the high-low of the crafty republican. He 
accepted Hampton Court Palace as his residence, and an estate of 
4000Z. a year was voted to him, without the purity of his intentions 
offering any obstacle to his receiving it. 

The Parliament was now getting into disrepute, and Cromwell thought 
he would take advantage of its loss of popularity, to increase his own 
stock, whereupon the game of “ diamond cut diamond” was commenced 
between them. The Parliament had now been sitting for some years, 
and people began to think there might be too much of a good thing, 
even in an assembly of red-hot patriots, that had hanged a king, and 
sent the country into a fit of melancholy, by prohibiting, by law, every¬ 
thing in the shape of cheerfulness. 

In those days, a joke would lead the perpetrator to the gibbet, and a 
pun was so highly penal—as, perhaps, it ought to be—that a dull dog 
who had dropped one by mistake, was called upon to find heavy securities 
for his good behaviour. The nation was thrown into the dismals by Act 
of Parliament, and England became—to use a simile that would, at the 
time, have sent our heads smack to the block—the very centre of 
gravity. Cromwell, seeing that the Parliament was going down in favour 
every day, resolved to raise himself by giving the finishing blow to it. 
He sounded Whitelock, to whom he put the question, “ What if a man 
should take upon himself to be king ? ” and thus Whitelock got a key to 
Cromwell’s intentions. The old man—Silverpate, as some call him,— 
did not take to the notion, and Cromwell was exceedingly cool to him 
ever afterwards. There was a meeting at Oliver’s lodgings, on the 20th 
of April, to discuss the best method of getting rid of the Parliament; 
and Cromwell, hearing the Commons were in the act of passing a very 
obnoxious bill, got up from his chair, in a very excited state, and told 
some soldiers to follow him. He swelled his little band with the sen¬ 
tinels on duty, whom he called out of their sentry-boxes, as he passed, 
and entered the House, attended by Lambert, a file of musketeers, and 
a few officers. He took his seat, and listened to the debate, but when 
the Speaker was going to put the motion, he started up, saying to Harri 
son—“Now’s the time; I must—indeed I must!” when Harrison pulled 
him back by the skirts of his coat, saying to him, “ Can’t you be quiet? 
Just think what you ’re doing.” He then proceeded to address the assembly, 
but soon got dreadfully unparliamentary in his language, and rushing 
from his seat to the floor of the House, got very personal. He next 
stamped on the floor, when his musketeers entered, and, pointing to the 


188 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK VI 


Speaker, who was of course raised above the rest, he cried “ Fetch him 
down! ” when the Speaker was seized by the robe and pulled into the 
midst of the assembly. Pointing to Algernon Sydney, Cromwell next 
cried “ Put him out! ” and out he went, like a farthing rushlight. 

Algernon was very young, and exhibited at first a degree of boyish 
obstinacy, mixed -with infantine insolence, which caused him to be refrac¬ 
tory, or—to use a simile in conformity with the image of the rushlight 
—to flare up in the socket. He, for a moment, refused to go ; which 
caused Harrison to tap him gently on the shoulder, and say to him, in a 
mild, but resolute tone, “ Come, come, young gentleman ; if you don’t 
go out quietly, we must put you out.” The child seemed doubtful 
whether to turn refractory or not, when it suddenly appeared to occur to 
him that it would be useless to resist; and, just as Harrison had his 
hands on the lad’s shoulders, to impart to him sufficient momentum to 
have sent him flying through the door, young Algernon made up his 
mind that he would go quietly. Cromwell stood, in fact, like a dog in 
the midst of so many rats ; a position he had perhaps learned to assume, 
from his residence at the Cockpit; and he next flew at the mace, ex¬ 
claiming—“ Take away that bauble ! ” The mace was most uncere¬ 
moniously hurried off, when, after a little more abuse against several of 
his old friends, the House was completely cleared, and there was an 
end to the Long Parliament. 

Nothing could exceed the well-bred dogism or utter curishness of the 
Commons on this occasion, for not one of them offered the smallest 
resistance to the violence of Cromwell. When they had all sneaked out 
he locked and double locked the door, put the keys in his pocket, and 
carried them to his lodgings. He admitted that he had not intended 
to have gone so far when he first entered the House, but the mean¬ 
spiritedness of the Members had urged him on to the course he had 
adopted. 

Thinking that he might as well make a day of it, he proposed to 
Harrison and Lambert to walk with him to Derby House, and the three 
stalked into the room where the Council of State was sitting. Cromwell 
at first pretended to listen with attention to what was going on, and 
gave an occasional loud ejaculation of “ Hear ! ” but Bradshaw, who was 
presiding, soon felt that the cheer was ironical. Business was permitted 
to proceed in this way for a few minutes, when the Council felt it was 
being “ quizzed,” and Bradshaw, giving an incredulous look at Cromwell, 
the latter made no longer a secret of his intention. “ Come, come,” 
he cried, “ there’s been enough of this; go home, and get to bed, and 
don’t come here again until you’ve a message from me that you ’re 
wanted.” The hint was immediately taken by Bradshaw, who started 
up and ran for it—for he was afraid of rough treatment—and he pre¬ 
sently had close at his heels the whole of his colleagues. Thus, within 
the space of a few hours, Cromwell had broken up the Council of State 
and dissolved the Long Parliament 






































































































































































































































































CHAP. VI.] 


THE BAREBONES PARLIAMENT. 


169 


Cromwell, having made short work of the Long Parliament, proceeded 
to supply its place by a legislature of his own composition, and the 
enemy of absolute monarchy proved himself an absolute humbug by 
acts of the most arbitrary and designing character. His pretended 
patriotism had in fact been a struggle on his part to decide whether 
the business of despotism should remain in the hands that were 
“ native and to the manner born ” to it, or whether he should start on his 
own account as a monopolist of tyranny to be practised for his own 
aggrandisement. The new Parliament was a miscellaneous collection 
of impostors and scamps, with a slight mixture of honest men, but 



The Barebones Parliament. 


these were too few to make the thing respectable. Cromwell now 
began to put on the external semblance of religion with an extravagance 
of display that gives us every reason to doubt his sincerity. As the 
VOL. IT. 0 
























































































































] 90 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [l300K VI. 

man of straw frequently covers himself with jewellery, a good deal of 
which may be sham ; so Cromwell enveloped himself in all the externals 
of sanctity, which we firmly believe penetrated no further than the 
surface. 

One of the principal members of the new Parliament was a fellow 
named Barbone or Barebone, a leather-seller and currier, who attempted 
to curry favour by an affectation of extreme holiness. The legislative 
assembly subsequently got the name of the Barebones Parliament from 
the person we have named, and the whole pack of humbugs usurped 
the powers of the state by pretending they “ had a call ” to take upon 
them the duties of government. 

It may generally be observed, that they who make piety a profession 
look very sharply out for professional profits, and if they are desirous of 
taking what is not justly their own, they soon get up an imaginary 
“ call ” to urge them to the robbery. Cromwell formally handed over 
to them the supreme authority—which, by the bye, was not his to give 
-—and the first day of tlieir meeting was devoted to praying and 
preaching with a view to giving the public an idea of their excessive 
sanctity. They soon set to work in their career of mischief, and began 
by abolishing the Court of Chancery, on account of its delays, which 
was like killing a horse because it did not happen to go at full gallop. 
They certainly expedited the suits, and brought them to a conclusion 
about as effectually as one would accelerate a steam-engine by shutting 
up the safety-valve, and allowing it to go to smash with the utmost 
possible rapidity. They nominated as judges a new set of lawyers, 
whose qualification was that they were not in the law; and there is no 
doubt the Parliament would have dissolved every institution in the 
kingdom if the members had not dissolved themselves on the 12th of 
December, 1654, at the suggestion of Cromwell. 

The old constitutional principle, that too many cooks spoil the broth, 
having been rapidly exemplified, it was declared expedient to have “ a 
commonwealth in a single person,” or, in other words, to have a king 
with a democratic name, which is the invariable result of the policy of 
red-hot republicans. Cromwell was of course the unit who had put 
himself down as A. 1, for the new office, and he succeeded in choosing 
himself or getting himself chosen by the title of Lord Protector of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland. Thus, though the people had cut off 
the head of a real king, another head grew in its place, for Government 
is like the hydra, which must have a head, however often the process of 
decapitation may be carried into execution. The brewer had, in fact, 
mashed up the constitution as completely as if he had used one of his 
own mash-tubs for the purpose, and his upstart insolence reached such 
a point, that the now well-known expression, “ He doesn’t think small 
beer of himself,” was first applied in reference to this dealer in ale and 
stout, who, it was clumsily observed, had “ gone the entire ” in his great 
audacity. 

While these things were going on at home, the English fleet had been 


CHAr. VI. J FRANCE, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL RECOGNIZE CROMWELL. 191 

engaged with Von Tromp, or Trump, abroad, and the Dutch sailor 
behaved like the article which his name delicately indicates. The Dutch 
for some time, though they only had this Von Trump, carried off all the 
honours, and sometimes succeeded even by tricks; but at length the 
distinguished Trump was obliged to “ shuffle off the mortal, coil,” and 
though he would gladly have revoked his determination to “ cut in ” to 
such a desperate game as an engagement with the English, he played it 
out to the last with all his wonted courage. The only remaining Trump, 
looking whistfully round him, fell by a blow from a knave who was in 
the suit and service of the English. When the last breath was blown 
out of the highly respectable Trump, the war between the Dutch and the 
English was at an end, and the Protector had time to follow out his 
principles by protecting himself with the utmost vigilance. One of his 
chief difficulties arose from the eagerness of the various liberal sects in 
religion to oppress each other in the name of brotherly love and universal 
harmony. This difficulty in quieting the demands of each to exterminate 
the others taught him lessons of diplomacy, and Cromwell soon became 
the most accomplished “ do ” that ever had a place in the pages of 
history. Though he recommended great tolerance in their quarrels 
with each other, they no sooner began to abuse him than he threw some 
of them into prison, reminding us of the celebrated apostle of Temper¬ 
ance who, in a fit of intoxication, broke the windows of a public-house 
for the purpose of assisting the triumph of the “grand principle.” 

Cromwell, who was a clever man, and though a brewer was averse to 
doing things by half-and-half, made some legal appointments that gave 
general satisfaction. He promoted Hale—with whom he was hale fellow 
well met—to the Bench of the Common Pleas, and he was fortunate 
enough to obtain a recognition of his protectorate from the Governments 
of France, Spain, and Portugal. 

On the 3rd of September, 1054, which was Sunday, Cromwell, as 
Protector, first met his new Parliament, and played the part of a king 
in all its most essential points, even down to the delivery of a speech 
from the throne, remarkable for the badness of its grammar, the anti 
quitv of its language, and the utter emptiness of most of its sentences. 
He abused the levellers, for, with the skill of political engineering, he 
desired to level down no lower than the “ dumpy level ” at which he had 
arrived ; and while eulogising liberty of conscience, he admitted it to be 
a capital thing so long as it did not extend to the formation of opinions 
unfavourable to the Protector’s own position. He spoke glowingly of 
the beauty of free thoughts, but hinted that, lest these thoughts should 
be more free than welcome, the people had better keep their thoughts to 
themselves as much as possible. 

At the close of Cromwell’s speech, the Commons sneaked back to 
their House, where they elected Lenthall their Speaker, and appointed 
the 13th of September a day of humiliation, as if there had not been 
humiliation enough for the country in the conduct it had been recently 
pursuing. The Protector soon began to put his despotic principles in 


192 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


force, for his position having been debated rather freely, he sent for the 
members of Parliament to the Painted Chamber, and told them very 
plainly that he had made up his mind to stand no impertinence, “You 
wanted a republic,” said he, “ and you have got it; so you had better be 
satisfied.” In vain did they venture to urge that liberty, equality, and 
all the rest of it had been the purpose they had in view, for he replied 
that “ they were all equally bound to show subservience to him, and 
that as to liberty, they were at perfect liberty to do, say, or think any¬ 
thing that would not be offensive to him, their master.” He followed 
up this announcement by placing a guard at the door of the Parliament, 
whose duty it was to exclaim to each member, “ You can’t go in, sir, 
until you have signed this paper,” and on its being produced, it turned 
out to be an agreement not to question in any manner Cromwell’s 
authority. Though this was a piece of tyranny and impertinence more 
disgusting than anything that had been attempted by Charles, 130 of 
the members yielded to it at once ; for it is a curious fact that, though 
the people will often show the susceptibility of the blood-horse at the 
slightest check of the rein when it is held by a royal hand, they will 
manifest the stolid patience of the ass under the most violent treatment 
from one of themselves, who has risen to the position of their master. 

On the 14th of September Cromwell’s door-keepers played their 
parts so well, and barred the entrance so effectually against all but those 
who would sign the paper, that a great many more agreed to do so, and 
when the number of consenting parties was sufficiently respectable to 
make up a fair average house, Cromwell’s creatures proceeded to vote 
that subscribing the recognition of the Protector should be a necessary 
preliminary to taking a seat in Parliament. 

The Protector having done everything he could for himself, pro¬ 
ceeded to show his protecting influence—of course—over several of his 
relatives. Fleetwood, who had married his daughter—the widow of 
Ireton,—was sent as governor to Ireland, and the Protector’s own son 
afterwards succeeded to this high and lucrative office. Not only did he 
provide snugly for his living kindred, but he gave them most inappro 
priate honours when dead, and his mother happening to go off about 
this time, he actually insisted on the “ old woman’s” being entombed in 
the Abbey of Westminster. What the dowager Mrs. Cromwell had 
done to deserve this distinction, we have yet to learn, and as we have 
learnt everything connected with the subject on which we write, our 
instruction on this point will, we fear, be postponed to a very distant 
period. 

Among the incidents of the Protector’s domestic life, there is one 
which we will insert on account of its amusing and perhaps instructive 
character. Cromwell’s vanity had so increased with his success, that he 
one day said to himself, “ I can drive a whole people ; I can drive a 
bargain as well as any man; and, odds, bobs, and buttercups! why 
should I not be able to drive my own carriage ? ” The cattle having 
been put to, he mounted the box with a jaunty air to enjoy a jaunt, and 


CHAP. VI.] CROMWELL DISMISSES THE PARLIAMENT 193 

was tooling the cattle down Tooley Street, when, in consequence of the 
friskiness of one of the nags, Cromwell began nagging at his mouth with 
much violence. The horses not being so easily guided and controlled as 
the Parliament, soon turned restive, and ran away; which threw the 
Protector from his seat, and his own poll came into collision with the 
pole of his carriage. To add to the unpleasantness of the situation, a 
loaded pistol, which Cromwell always carried about him, went off, in 
sympathy, no doubt, with the steeds : or, perhaps, the charge could no 
longer contain itself, and exploded with a burst of indignation at the 
pride of its owner, who, however, was not wounded by the accident. 

The Protector continued to feather his nest with unabated zeal, and 
he got the Parliament to vote him half-a-dozen different abodes, includ¬ 
ing three or four in London itself; so that, unless he took breakfast at 
one, dined at a second, and took “ his tea” at a third, he could not have 
occupied the metropolitan residences set apart for him. Multiplicity of 
lodgings appears to have been a faiblesse of the Protector : for, notwith¬ 
standing these six places of sojourn, there is scarcely a suburb that has 
not a house or apartments to let that, according to a landlord’s myth, 
once served for the palace or residence of Cromwell. If we may trust to 
tradition, he once lived at a surgeon’s in the Broadway, Hammersmith ; 
once in a lane at Brompton; once in Little Upper James Street, North; 
and once in or near Piebald Row on the confines of Pimlico. Having 
got an allotment of plenty of houses, to an extent reminding us of the 
extravagant order of “ some more gigs” which an anonymous spendthrift 
once commanded of his coachmaker, Cromwell began to think about 
getting a grant to pay the expenses of his numerous establishments. 

An allowance of £200,000 a year was settled on himself and his suc¬ 
cessors, which, we find from a (*) document of the period, was exactly 
one entire sixth of the whole aggregate revenue of the three' kingdoms 
put together. 

Thus, though poor Charles had experienced the utmost difficulty in 
getting money granted for the payment of his debts, or even for the 
costs of his living like a king and a gentleman, the usurper Cromwell 
obtained at once the concession of a most liberal salary. 

Notwithstanding the subservience the Parliament had in the first 
instance shown, symptoms of refractoriness in that quarter soon 
became visible. The Protector had made up his mind to go on 
changing it, as he would have done a set of domestic servants, until he 
could thoroughly suit himself; and accordingly, on the 22nd of January, 
1650, he rang the bell, desired the legislature to appear before him, 
and announced that he had no further use for it. The members were 
desired to find themselves situations elsewhere ; and though some of 
them had courage enough to hint that they “ would be sure to better 
themselves, for they were tired of the quantity of dirty work they had 
had to do,” the Parliament evinced, on the whole, a spirit, or rather 
a want of spirit, that was quite contemptible Some of the malcontents 

* Statement of a sub-committee of the Commons. 


194 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


ventured on a little revolutionary rising; but the levellers were speedily 
reduced to their old level. Major Wildman, a roan rendered wild at 
the success of Cromwell’s ambition, and hating the Protectorate, had 
been heard to declare that he would “ take the linch-pin out of the 
common-weal,” and notwithstanding the flaw in the orthography, he 
was imprisoned on this evidence of hostility to the ruling power. At 
the moment when Wildman was arrested, he was sitting alone in his 



Arrest of Wildman. 


own back-parlour, evincing the same sort of enthusiasm that has im¬ 
mortalised the three tailors of Tooley Street, and drawing up “ a 
declaration of the free and well-affected people of England now in arms 
against the tyrant Oliver Cromwell, Esquire.” The Major thought he 
had accomplished something very stinging, in adding “ Esquire ” to 
Cromwell’s name ; and he was in the act of roaring out, “ Hear, hear ! 
Bravo, bravo !” after he had written out the title of his tremendous 
manifesto, when a sudden bursting open of the door, and a cry of “ You 














































































CHAP. VI.] THE PROTECTOll ASSEMBLES ANOTHER PARLIAMENT. 195 

must come along with us,” threw the Major into a state of surprise from 
which he had not recovered when he found himself put for safe keeping 
in the keep of Chepstowe Castle. A few other insurrectionary move¬ 
ments were made, but all of them were of a very trifling character. 
Penruddock, Grove, and Lucas got up a little royalist trio, but their 
movement was soon turned into a dis-concerted piece, by a regiment of 
Cromwell’s horse, who rode rough-shod over the three conspirators, and 
they were executed instead of their project. 

The Protector was no less imperious towards foreign nations than 
towards his own, and having made some demands upon Spain, to which 
that country refused to accede, he sent Admiral Penn, familiarly termed 
his Nibs, to write his name upon some of the Spanish possessions. 
Assisted by General Venables, Penn, who may be distinguished as a 
steel-pen, for he carried a pointed sword, and never showed a white 
feather, took the island of Jamaica after a contest, in which he found 
among the inhabitants of Jamaica some rum customers. Blake worried 
the Spaniards in another quarter, and the Protector spread so much 
consternation among some of the European governments, that the cele¬ 
brated Cardinal Mazarin, who greatly feared him, began to look so very 
blue, that a Mazarine blue retains to this very day a character for 
intensity. 

Emboldened by his good fortune, Cromwell thought he might venture 
on another parliament, wdiich met on the 17th of September, 1656, the 
members having undergone at the door an examination as to their 
servility to the Protector’s purposes. The first sitting was like the first 
night of any novelty at the pit of Her Majesty’s Theatre, and two of 
Cromwell's creatures officiated as check-takers. Every member who 
presented himself at the doors was obliged to produce his credentials, 
and upon this being satisfactorily done, a cry of “ Pass one ” was raised to 
the officer in charge of the inner barrier. Nearly one hundred new mem¬ 
bers were sent back, after more or less altercation; and the words “ I can't 
help it, sir; those are my orders; you must go back, sir,” were being con¬ 
tinually heard above the din of “ Pass one, ” or “It’s all right,” which 
confirmed the privilege of admission claimed by many of the applicants. 

A legislature with only one house soon began to be considered as a 
sort of sow r with one ear, and even the ear that remained was closed by 
Cromwell’s art against what he used to call in private “ the swinish 
multitude.” A suggestion was made by several that the House of Lords 
should be restored, and many began to sigh for a return to the old 
constitution, which had been broken up before there had been time to 
try the effect of a new one. 

At length an alderman of London, one Sir Christopher Pack, started 
up, without any preliminary notice, and moved that the title of king 
should be offered to the Protector. Pack’s proposition set off the entire 
pack of republicans in full cry against him, and they all continued to 
give tongue from the 23rd of February to the 26th of March, 1657, 
when Pack’s motion was carried by a large majority. A deputation was 


190 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


! BOOK VI. 


appointed to request that “ his Highness would be pleased to magnify 
himself with the title of king,”—a proposition almost as absurd as 
an offer to place Barclay and Perkins on the throne, or entreat Meux 
and Co. to write Henry IX. over the door of their brewery. 

Cromwell gave an evasive reply to the requisition, approving most 
fully of the proposition to restore the House of Lords, but was 
hanging back about the “ other little matter,” when a declaration 
from some of his former friends and tools, that they had fought 
against monarchy and would do so again if required, completely 
settled him in his wavering .refusal of the royal title. He w r as 
therefore inaugurated with much pomp as Lord Protector, and indeed 
he might well have been satisfied, for he had secured everything except 
the name of royalty. His manner of life and his court were marked by 
no extravagant show, but he had everything very comfortable ; and he 



One of the Protector’* Tea Parties. 



































































































CIIAP. VI.] 


DEATH OF ADMIRAL BLAKE. 


107 


was accustomed to say to liis intimate friends, “ What do I want with 
the gilt, for haven’t I got the gingerbread ? ” He did not give very large 
parties at Hampton Court, hut used to have “a few friends” to tea, and 
“ a little music” in the evening. He occasionally attempted a joke, 
“ hut this,” says Whitelock, “ was always a very ponderous business.” 
One of his frolics—we start instinctively at the idea of Cromwell being 
frolicsome—was to order a drum to beat in the middle of dinner, falling 
unpleasantly on the drums of his guests’ ears, and at the signal the Pro¬ 
tector’s guards were allowed to rush into the room, clear the table, 
pocket the poultry, and, on a certain signal from the drum, make off 
with the drumsticks. 

Cromwell had the good taste to delight in the society of clever men, 
and there was always a knife and fork at Hampton Court for Milton, or 
for that marvel of his age, the celebrated Andrew Marvel. Waller, the 
poet, v r as welcome always ; Drvden now and then; John Biddle some¬ 
times ; and Archbishop Usher, whom Cromwell used to call the only 
real Gentleman Usher of his day, was constantly kicking his heels under 
the Protector’s mahogany. 

We have now to record the death of poor Blake, who, having fluttered 
the Canaries in the isles of that name, was returning safe into Plymouth 
Sound, when he died of the scurvy, which, according to a wag of that day 
—happily the wretch is not a wag of this—showed that Fortune had in 
store for him but scurvy treatment. Poor Blake had been in early life 
a candidate for an Oxford fellowship, but lost it from the lowness of his 
stature,* for in Blake’s time very little fellows were not academically 
recognised. There is no doubt that with his general ability he would 
have taken a very high degree if he had been only big enough. He was 
buried at the Protector’s expense, in Henry VII.’s Chapel, for Crom¬ 
well was a great undertaker, and was very fond of providing his friends 
with splendid funerals. 

While these things were happening at home, the Protector was 
fortifying his position abroad, and had persuaded the French to abandon 
Charles II., known to the world in general, and to playgoers in parti¬ 
cular, as the “ merry monarch.” This fugitive scamp—of whom more 
hereafter—was mean enough to offer to marry one of the Misses Crom¬ 
well, a daughter of the usurper, who had the good sense and spirit to 
turn up his puritanical nose at the idea of such a son-in-law. Orrery, 
whom Charles consulted with the vague idea that consulting an orrery 
was in fact consulting the stars, took the message to Cromwell, who 
replied haughtily, “ I am more than a match for Charles, but Charles is 
less than a match for my daughter.” The Protector had what he called 
something better in view for his “gal,” who, on the 17th of November, 
was wedded to Lord Falconbridge. The ceremony was described in the 
Morning Post of the period, which was then called the Court Gazette, 
and a column was devoted to an account of the festivities. We see 
from facts like these how ready are the declaimers against aristocracy to 

* Brodie, Brit. Emp., iv. 317. 


198 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


adopt the ways and even the weaknesses of a class that is ridiculed 
and abused chiefly by those who would, if they could, belong to it. 

The ascendancy of the puritan Protector was marked by the grossest 
corruption that ever prevailed under the most licentious of regal govern¬ 
ments. Unlimited bribery of one portion of the people was effected by 
the unlimited robbery of the other, and thus the dupes were made to pay 
the knaves who sold themselves and betrayed their fellow-subjects for 
the sake of Cromwell’s aggrandisement. 

On the 20th of January, 1G58, the Parliament met again, and frater 
nised with a little batch of peers, amounting to sixty in all, whom 
Cromwell had created, and who might, indeed—upon our honour, we 
don’t say so for the sake of the pun—be justly called his creatures. Two 
of the Protector’s sons, namely, Richard and Henry, were among the 
batch of anything but thoroughbreds, that formed the roll of Oliver’s 
peerage. The number, however, included some highly respectable 
names, among whom we may particularly notice Lord Mulgrave, who 
took the family name of Phipps, because in the civil wars he would not 
at one time have given Phippence for his life ; Lord John Clay pole, 
whose head was as thick and whose brains were as muddy as his title 
implies ; and a few old military friends of Cromwell. Colonel Pride, 
who had been a drayman, was also among the new peers; and the 
drayman of course offered a fair butt to the royalists, who threw his 
dray in his face and assailed him with the shafts of ridicule. 

Scarcely any of the genuine nobles who had been called to Parlia¬ 
ment condescended to come, and the Protector made his appearance 
before a house almost as poor as some of those in which the farce of legis¬ 
lation is enacted in these days at nearly the close of a very long 
session. Cromwell was really indisposed, or shammed indisposition on 
account of the scantiness of the audience, for, after having said a few 
words, he turned to his Lord Speaker Fiennes, exclaiming, “ Fiennes ! 
you know my mind pretty well; so just give it them as strongly as you 
like, for I’m too tired to talk to them.” Fiennes, taking the hint, pro¬ 
ceeded to rattle on at very rapid rate, mixing up a quantity of religious 
quotations and a vast deal of vulgar abuse, in the prevailing style of the 
period. 

The Commons retired to their chamber in a huff; and four days 
afterwards receiving a message mentioning the Upper House, refused to 
recognise the peers except as the “ other house,”—for the little 
Shakspearean fable of the Rose, the Odour, and the Name, was not at 
that time popular. The Protector, who always sent for the Parliament 
as he would have sent for bis tailor, desired that the legislature should 
be shown into the banquetting or dining-room, where he advised them 
not to quarrel, and, producing the public accounts, he impressed upon 
them that things were very bad in the City. He exhorted them not to 
increase the panic by any dissensions among themselves, but he could 
not persuade them to change their note; and he accordingly got out of 
bed—some say, wrong leg first—very early on the 4th of February, 


CHAP. VI.] 


DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 


199 


when, calling for liis hot water and his Parliament, he dissolved the 
latter without a moment’s warning. The legislative body had enjoyed a 
short but not very merry life of fourteen days, when an end was thus put 
to its too weak existence. 

The Protector was now in need of all his protective powers in con¬ 
sequence of the dangers that on all sides threatened him. The repub¬ 
licans were ready, as they generally are, to draw anything, from a sword 
to a bill; and the army, with its pay in arrear, did nothing but grumble. 
The royalists were being inspirited by the Marquis of Ormond, who was 
“ up in town,” quite incog.; and the levellers were, of course, ready to 
sink to any level, however degraded, in the cause of the first leader who 
was willing and able to purchase them. 

Notwithstanding the gathering storm, Cromwell boldly stuck up the 
sword of vengeance by his side, as a sort of lightning conductor to turn 
aside the destruction that threatened him. A pamphlet, called “ Killing 
no Murder,” put him to the expense of a steel shirt, the collar of which, 
by the way, could have required no starch; and he kept himself con¬ 
tinually “armed in proof,” but we do not know whether he selected an 
author’s proof, which might have been truly impregnable armour, for get¬ 
ting through an author’s proof is frequently quite impossible. He carried 
pistols in his pockets, to be let off when occasion required—a provision 
of which he never gave his enemies the benefit. Poor Hr. Hunt was 
cruelly cut off—or, at least, his head was—which amounted to much 
the same thing ; and others were treated with similar severity. 

On the Continent the Protector was very successful, and the English 
serving under Turenne, or, as some have called him, Tureen, poured 
down upon Dunkirk, which was overwhelmed and taken. Cromwell, 
however, lived a miserable life at home, being suspicious of every one 
about him, and he never dared sleep more than two consecutive nights 
in the same place—a circumstance that may account for the multiplicity 
of lodgings we have already alluded to. This continual changing of 
apartments must have rendered him very liable to get put into damp 
sheets, and, as hydropathy had not yet been reduced to a system, he 
caught the ague, instead of profiting by the moisture of the bed-clothes. 
On the 2nd of September he grew very bad indeed, and, in the presence 
of four or five of the Council, he named his son Richard to succeed him; 
but this youth was so complete a failure, that to talk of his succeeding 
was utterly ridiculous. Oliver Cromwell died between three and four 
o’clock in the afternoon of the 3rd of September, the day on which he 
always expected good luck, for it was the anniversary of some of his 
greatest victories. Death, however, is an enemy not to be overcome, and, 
in spite of the prestige of success which belonged to the day, the 
Protector was compelled to yield to the universal conqueror. He died 
in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and it is a singular coincidence that 
Nature brewed a tremendous storm—as if in compliment to the brewer 
—at the very moment of his dissolution. 

The character of Cromwell was, as we have already intimated, a 


200 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


species of half-and-half, in which the smaller description of beer 
appeared to preponderate. He had, like a pot of porter, a good 



One, Two, Three, and Under. 


head; but, to draw a simile from the same refreshing fount, he was 
rather frothy than substantial in his political qualities. His speeches 
had the wonderful peculiarity of meaning nothing, and instead of 
saying a great deal in a few words, he managed to say very little in 
a great many.* Cromwell wrote almost as obscurely as he spoke, and 
he could do little more than sign his name, for which he used to 
make the old excuse of the illiterate, that his education had been 
somewhat neglected; and indeed it seemed to have gone very little 
beyond those primitive pothooks intended for the hanging up of future 
more important acquisitions. The Protector’s wit was exceedingly 
coarse, or rather particularly fine, for it was scarcely perceptible. It 
savoured much of the Scotch humourist, whose fun might be exceedingly 
good sometimes, if it were not always invisible. His practical jokes 
were not particularly happy, and his smearing the chairs with sweet¬ 
meats at Whitehall, to dirty the dresses of the ladies, was a piece of 
facetiousness worthy of an eccentric scavenger, but highly unbecoming 

* The following is an extract from one of the Protector’s speeches, which even Captain 
jBunsby, the naval oracle in J)ombcy and Son , might be proud of :—“ I confess, I would 
say, I hope, I may be understood in this, for indeed I must be tender in what I say to such an 
audience as this;—I say, I would be understood that in this argument I do not make a 
parallel between men of a different mind .”-—Original Speech of Oliver Cromwell. 
















































CHAP. VI.] 


CHARACTER OF THE PROTECTOR. 


201 


to the chief-magistrate, for the time being, of such a country as 
England. 

Though Cromwell could scarcely read the characters of caligraphy, 
he could peruse the characters of men with great acuteness. He was 
well acquainted with all the variations of human types, and could easily 
distinguish the capitals from the lower-case. In private life he was 
playful, though in his public capacity he was severe even to cruelty; 
and it has hence been prettily remarked, that, though he was a kitten 
in the bosom of his family, the puss became a tiger in the arena of 
politics. He never turned his back upon any of his children, except at 
leap-frog, in which he would often indulge with his sons, who had little 
of that vaulting ambition for which their parent was conspicuous. 



Cromwell playing at Leap-frog with his Children. 



















































































202 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH, 

RICHARD CROMWELL. 

nsidering all tilings, we have 
some hesitation in devoting a 
chapter to this contemptible im¬ 
becile ; but in taking up the 
thread of the history, we promise 
to wind him off in a very few 
pages. 

The ceremony of proclamation 
was performed in London and 
Westminster, as well as in every 
city of the kingdom, and con¬ 
gratulatory addresses poured in 
upon the new protector, as they 
would upon Brown, Jones, Robin¬ 
son, or any other piece of scum 
that the tide of chance might have thrown up to the same position. 
There was the usual junction of condolence on the death of the parent, 
and joy at the accession of the son; but both expressions were equally 
affected and hypocritical. Richard Cromwell was, however, such a mere 
nonentity, that he could not turn to account the advantages of his 
position : and when the army promised to stand by him to a man he 
had nothing to say beyond “ Dear me ! how very kind of the army!” 
He had, it is true, been born, as the saying is, “ with a silver spoon in 
his mouth,” and the qualities of the spoon had become incorporated with 
his being. 

The soldiers soon began to discover that the brewer’s son knew more 
about barrels of beer than barrels of gunpowder, and that his acquaint¬ 
ance with the musket was limited to the butt end of it. A petition was 
got up among the troops requesting him to resign; but he replied, that 
though he was very willing to do anything to oblige, he was sure his 
people did not wish him to relinquish the command of the army. 

Richard had sent, as usual, for the coffers of the state, which have 
been generally the first object of solicitude to one attaining the post of 
chief magistrate. Some small change was all that the coffers contained, and 
he resolved to call a Parliament in order to replenish them. The legislative 
assembly met on the 27th of January, 1659, but was very soon torn by 
factions of every sort, except satisfaction, which there were no symptoms 
of in any quarter whatever. Fleetwood, the brother-in-law of Richard 
Cromwell, and Desborough, his uncle-in-law, who had married his aunt, 
got up a movement against him among the soldiers, who resented 









CHAP. VII.] 


RICHARD CROMWELL. 


203 


their want of pay, and avowed their determination not to draw their 
swords until they had drawn their salaries. Finding there was nothing 
to he got out of the Parliament, Richard dissolved it, and the old one 
that Oliver had forcibly ejected had the impudence to resume its sittings. 
The new Protector beginning to think, like his father, that self-pro¬ 
tection -was the first duty he had to perform, withdrew to Hampton 
Court, and sent in his resignation, which was accepted immediately. 

The Parliament, though very long of date, was very short of cash, and 
coolly proposed selling the three royal palaces to ease the pecuniary 
pressure which the tightness in the City was occasioning. Royalists 
plots, however, disturbed the plans of the assembly, whose members 
quarrelled fiercely with each other, and were terribly bamboozled by 
Monk, who had a large amount of monkish deception in his character. 
He wrote letters to cajole Parliament, while he was in treaty with the 
king; but the former being very short of cash soon decided, whatever 
doubts he might have entertained as to which was the best investment 
for his allegiance. 

It having become tolerably sure that Charles II. would be sent for, 
there was a sudden rush of competitors for the honour or dishonour, as 
the case may be, of bringing him back to England. Even Fleetwood, 
the brother-in-law of Richard Cromwell and the son-in-law of Oliver, was 
on the point of undertaking the job ; but having entered into a sort of 
tacit agreement with Lambert, to give him a share in any job that he 
(Fleetwood) might undertake, the latter could not make up his mind to 
sell himself in the former’s absence. 

Monk continued to deceive the Parliament with so much success that 
he was invited by that body to come to London, and accept the situation 
of keeper of St. James’s Park, a post of honour rather than of active 
duty : for, in those days, “ the boys” had not gained such ascendancy as 
to call for activity in the metropolitan beadlery. Monk used his new 
position for the purpose of promoting the object for the furtherance of 
which he had in fact sold himself to the king; and his Majesty having 
sent a letter to the Parliament, in which the lords had again mustered 
very strong, a favourable answer was returned to it. 

Charles was voted a sum of £50,000 to pay his expenses home, and 
the evening was spent in bell-ringing, beer, and bonfiies. Royalty 
rushed up to a premium as exorbitant and unhealthy as the dis¬ 
count to which it had fallen in the days of the Commonwealth; and on 
the 8th of May, 1660, Charles was proclaimed at the gate of Westminster 
Hall, amidst loud cries of “Hats off!” “ Down in front! ” “Long live 
the king!” and “Where are you shoving to?” 

Richard Cromwell made himself not the least obstacle to any arrange¬ 
ments that might be made for deposing him, and indeed begged the 
parties concerned would not “ consider him ” in any alterations that 
circumstances might require. His chief anxiety was to get a guarantee 
against the expenses of his father’s funeral, for which “poor Richard” 
feared he was legally responsible. He sneaked eventually out of the 


204 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI. 


kingdom, and making a call abroad on a foreign prince, who did not 
know him, was told to his face, in the course of casual conversation, that 
“ Oliver Cromwell, though a villain and a traitor, was fit to command, 
but that Richard was a mere poltroon and an idiot.”* “What has 
become of the fellow ? ” added the prince; upon which Richard suddenly 
withdrew, and the conversation ended. He eventually returned to 
England, and taking the name of Clark, died unknown at a little place 
in Cheshunt. 

We may as well finish off the Cromwells at once, while we are about 
them, by mentioning that the last known descendant of the family, who 
died in 1821, was on the roll of attornies. From the throne of 
England to the stool in a solicitor’s office, is undoubtedly a dreadful 
drop; and if Oliver Cromwell could have seen the last of his race 
making out a bill of costs, the Protector would have received a lesson 
by which he might have profited. 

* Universal Biography, vol. i., Life of Richard Cromwell. The Prince of Conte 
is the individual with whom the conversation Avas held in which Richard received, unasked, 
this true but not flattering character. 



CHAP. VIII.] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE.. 


205 


CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. 

ON THE NATIONAL INDUSTRY AND THE LITERATURE, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, 

AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 

That improvement was not stationary during the period we have just 
been describing, will be inferred from the fact that, in 1625, Science 
called a hackney-coach into existence. Though in these days, invention 
would seem to be at a stand if it went no further than the point we 
have indicated, still the hackney-carriage was a decided advance on the 
slow coaches of previous centuries. From a print of the period, we 
perceive that the newly-invented vehicles resembled in shape something 
between a steam locomotive and a covered railway luggage-van, or in 
other words, exhibited a sort of combination of the 'bus and the boiler. 
The hackney-coachmen did not long enjoy a monopoly, for in 1634, Sir 
Sanders Duncomb thrust a pair of poles through an old sentry-box, 
and calling it a sedan, started it as a “ turn out” for his own convenience. 
The arrangement seeming to give satisfaction, he obtained a patent for 
fourteen in all, and S. D. advertised the careful removal of ladies and 
gentlemen by means of his new invention. 

In the year 1630, London began to exhibit symptoms of outgrowing 
its strength, and fresh buildings within three miles of the gates were 
prohibited. So long as the metropolis extended on all sides alike, there 
could have been nothing to fear, for it would have been as broad as it was 
long, at any rate. It is a curious fact, that those persons who had 
money in the 16tli and 17th centuries, did not know what t’o do with it. 
They had been in the habit of keeping it in the Royal Mint, till Charles 
the First got into the ugly habit of going down to that establishment, 
clearing off the whole of the cash it contained, calling it a loan, and 
never paying it back again. The capitalists next tried the experiment 
of lodging their cash with their clerks and apprentices, and unfortunately 
it soon became current coin of the realm, for the clerks and apprentices 
all ran away with it. “ The moneyed men, listening at last” says 
Anderson, “ to these admoney—tory lessons, began to place their cash in 
the hands of goldsmiths,” but these gentlemen used to pick out the 
heaviest coins, and make a profit by the sweating process, so that instead 
of living by the sweat of their own brows, they lived by the sweating of 
other people’s money. This was the origin of the banking business, 
which began in, or near, Sweeting’s Alley, then called Sweating’s Alley, 
from the practices we have mentioned. 

Gardening industry made wonderfully rapid strides during this era, 
for the peas were well drilled, the cabbages made to stand at ease 
in the open air, and the turnips to take close order, at the commencement 
of the seventeenth century. Cherries soon after came amongst the 

VOL. IT. P 


206 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VI 


English people, with a degree of cherry bounce that the beauty and 
delicacy of the fruit perhaps warranted. The apple was welcomed with 
enthusiasm, and Samuel Hartlib, a gardener of the day—week, month, 
or year—was so affected by the flourishing growth of an apple tree he 
had planted, that the well-known expression, “ Go it my pippin,” burst 
from his lips, and has taken its place in popularity with the Eureka of 
the old philosopher. The hops also presented themselves as candidates 
for British favour, and were soon at the top of the poll in all directions. 

The woollen manufacturers of England acquired importance at a very 
early date ; but the secret of dyeing the cloth could never be discovered, 
and every failure only threw a wretched stain upon national ingenuity 
At length a Dutchman settled himself, in 1643, at Bow, and announced, 
by a notice in his bow-window, his intention to get a living by dyeing 
upon an entirely new principle. Hitherto the English had miserably 
failed in this branch of art, for when they attempted to master the dye, 
and keep it under their control, it was always sure to come off with 
flying colours. The Dutchman of Bow had determined to conquer, even 
in dyeing, and he not only succeeded in producing a single shade, but 
he made such hits with his shots, that customers might safely stand the 
hazard of the dye, if they brought their orders to his establishment. 
He taught the art to the English, the fastness of whose colours had 
been previously shown in the extreme rapidity of their running. 

In 1622, hemp and flax having been introduced, ready dressed, into 
this country, the rope manufacture twined itself with the industrial 
institutions of England. There had been always a prejudice against the 
use of coal for domestic purposes; but on its value in manufactures 
being discovered, it acquired a higher character, though its best friends 
were never able to say that coal after all is not so black as it had been 
painted. It’ was extensively employed in iron manufactories, which had 
greatly advanced ; and we have seen an old woodcut of a saw which is 
one of those very “ wise saws ” that may be considered equal to the best 
of our “ modem instances.” 

Knowing the danger of playing with edge tools, we forbear to speak of 
them any longer in a sportive strain, and turn to the state of music in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Henry VIII. himself was a 
composer, if we are to believe Sir John Hawkins, but we suspect that 
the monarch’s well-known overtures to the Pope may have misled the 
musical historian. There were several writers of madrigals, a class of 
production whose name has been ingeniously but ignorantly supposed 
to have reference to the mad wriggles into which the music throws 
itself. 

Charles I. was an adept in the pleasing science, and pretended to play 
on the viol, though not without a sad viol—ation of some of the rules of 
harmony. He was, however, fond of melody, which, like everything 
else of a cheerful and agreeable nature, received a sad blow from the 
dull puritanical humbugs who rose into importance at the time of the 
Commonwealth. These psalm-singing sycophants were so fond of 


CHAP. VIII.1 


THE FINE ARTS.-THE DRAMA. 


207 


hearing their own melancholy and monotonous voices, that no accom¬ 
paniments were allowed : and thus, to use the impassioned pun of 
Smith,* “ one of the most disgusting specimens of an organised hypo¬ 
crisy that the world ever saw was carried on entirely without the use of 
organs.” 

The Fine Arts flourished in England under Charles I., who was a 
scholar, a man of taste, a gentleman, and, in fact, everything but what 
he ought to have been—namely, a good sovereign. He employed 
Vandyke to take off his head, or rather multiply it frequently, as if he 
felt a foreboding of his eventually losing it. He was also the patron of 
Inigo Jones, the architect of several public buildings, and of his own 
fortune. 

The drama is a subject so exciting to antiquarian speculation, that we 
are afraid of losing ourselves in the mists of ages by plunging into it. 
We cannot hope to surpass in sagacity some of those ingenious anno¬ 
tators of the present day, who have had such a keen eye to Gammer 
Gurton’s needle, that they actually trace its existence to so remote a date 
as some few years before the birth of its author.j- We need not parti 
cularise the various dramatic authors who gave lustre to the Elizabethan 
period, nor shall we fall into the affectation of talking about Master 
Beaumont, Master Fletcher, Master Jonson, Master Shakspeare, Master 
Deekes, and Master Heywood, as if they had been so many precocious 
young gentlemen or juvenile prodigies of which the present age is some¬ 
what prodigal. 

The long Parliament put down all stage plays, for the miserable 
mummers of whom that assembly was composed were desirous of having 
all the acting to themselves, though they made a very poor burlesque of 
the parts of statesmen and patriots. It has been ingeniously suggested 
by Mr. Collier, in his History of Dramatic Poetry, that the Puritanical 
Parliament suppressed the drama and dramatists less on conscientious 
grounds than from the fear of being made the subject of well-merited 
satire. The same feeling which would urge a legislature of pickpockets 
to abolish the police might have actuated the republicans in their zeal 
to get rid of that moral watch which a well regulated state will always 
keep over cant and villany. 

If, however, dramatic performances were scarce during the ascendancy 
of Cromwell and the Puritans, the public—had they known how to 
appreciate it—would not have been without food for mirth in the very 
ludicrous exhibitions which the events of the day were perpetually 
furnishing. The career of Cromwell himself might have euggested an 
amusing spectacle to those who are in the habit of turning to the 
ridiculous side of everything. A brewer on the throne, endeavouring 
to unite republican simplicity with royal state, presents to the imagination 
a figure almost as grotesque as that of an elephant on the tiglit-rope— 
an idea in which there is that rare combination of ponderosity and levity, 

* For further particulars of Smith, see the London Directory. 

f See Wright—who, by the way, was generally wrong—in his Historia Histrionica, 

p 2 


208 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK VI. 


which Cromwell’s conduct on the protectoral elbow, or supreme arm¬ 
chair, will be found to have realised. His unwieldy gambols and great 



The Balance of Power. 


preponderance over all below him, were most fatal to that balance of 
power which can never be sustained without an equality of pressure and 
an equality of resistance on all sides. 

Our survey of the literature of the 17th century would be incomplete 
if we were to omit to notice the 3rd of November, 1640, as being the 
date of the earliest English newspaper. It bore the name of the 
“ Diurnal Occurrences; or, Daily Proceedings of both Houses,” but 
though it professed to give daily news, it was only a weekly periodical. 
There arose rapidly a provincial press, but its pretensions were slight, 
and “ News from Hull," “ Truths from York," “ Warranted Tidings from 
Ireland were the names of some of the chief of these country news¬ 
papers. Their leading articles were not much in the style we are 
accustomed to at the present day; but the ancient order of penny-a- 
liners seemed to be ever agog for these precocious gooseberries, showers 
of frogs, and fading reminiscences of oldest inhabitants, that are still the 
staple of the productions of this humble class of contributors. It is a 
remarkable coincidence that the circulation of the blood and the circula¬ 
tion of newspapers should both have belonged to this period of our 
country’s history. 



















CHAP. VIII.] 


FURNITURE.-COSTUME.—WAGES. 


209 


Furniture and costume improved wonderfully in this age, and the 
wealthy became less chary of expence in their chairs, while they began 
to sleep on down, or, in other words, to feather their nests with great 
luxuriance. The clothes of the times of the two Charles’s were made 
much too large for the wearers, and may be considered characteristic of 
the loose habits of the period. The hair was cut short by the republican 
party, or Roundheads, in memory of whom the culprits at Clerkenwell 
and other prisons are cropped exceedingly close, though this is not 
the only point of resemblance between the modern rogues and the old 
regicides. 

The condition of the people was not very enviable in the era we have 
described, and it is a remarkable as well as a most instructive fact, that 
common-wealth is usually synonymous with common poverty. Wages 
were invariably low, for a man-servant who could thrash a corn-field and 
kill a hog, received only fifty shillings per annum. Poverty and 
knavery, begging and filching, were at their height under the reign of 
the Puritans ; for “ Like master, like man” was at all times a proverb 
that could be thoroughly relied upon. 


BOOK VII. 


THE PERIOD FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES THE SECOND 

TO THE REVOLUTION. 


CHAPTER THE FIRST. 


CHAKLES THE SECOND. 



Though we find Charles II. at the commencement of this chapter 
seated comfortably enough upon the English throne, the question 
“How came he there?”—when we remember the straits and the 
crookeds through which he passed—very naturally suggests itself. 

















































CHAP. I. ' 


ESCAPE OF CHARLES THE SECOND. 


211 


There is an anecdote connected with his escape from Worcester, which 
we have not given before, because, as it rests chiefly on the authority of 
the “ Merry Monarch ” himself, the story is very likely to be dubious. 
Whether fact or fiction, we may give it a place in the history of his 
reign, for if the tale is made up, the manufacture is entirely his own, 
and so far may be considered to belong to his annals. We shall there¬ 
fore follow the thread of the king's own narrative, and if the yarn he 
has spun was of a fabricated fabric, it is to Charles and not to us that 
the imposture must be attributed. 

On the battle of Worcester being utterly lost, Charles began to think 
of saving himself; but his adherents, who had been thoroughly beaten, 
insisted on sticking to him with rather inconvenient loyalty. Feeling 
that a small party could run away much faster than a large one, he 
resolved to give his too faithful friends the slip ; and when night came 
on he succeeded in doing so, leaving his supporters, who would have 
stuck to him till death, to shift for themselves. Charles, with that 
scamp Wilmot, afterwards Rochester, and three or four others, got clean 
off in a very dirty manner. Some advised the king to take shelter 
among the Scotch ; but his Majesty, having no desire to be regularly 
sold, declined putting himself in the power of a people who at that time 
valued the virtues for exactly what they might bring, and would no 
doubt have received the king with open arms as an eligible investment 
to be speedily realised. He determined, therefore, to proceed towards 
London, and, by the aid of a leathern doublet, grey breeches, and green 
jerkin, he “ made up ” very effectually as a stage countryman. 

Taking with him a real countryman, one Richard Penderell, as a 
companion, Charles went into a wood, from the edge of which he saw a 
troop of horse; but the rain poured down in such torrents that the troop 
retired, instead of taking shelter in the wood, which was certainly the 
wisest course they could have adopted. The anecdote is, however, so 
essentially dramatic, that the soldiers were perfectly in character when 
they went quite in the opposite direction to that they should have taken, 
like those pursuers on the stage who usually overlook the person they 
are in search of, and who, to every one else, is most conspicuously 
visible. Charles’s position on this occasion resembled, in a minor 
degree, the situation of the fugitive at the fair, who, pointing to a painted 
blind representing a tree with a hole cut down the centre of it, expressed 
his determination to conceal himself in “ yonder thicket.” Finding 
accommodation only for his body in the tree’s imaginary trunk, his legs 
of course protruded from the “ shady grove,” when two assassins in hot 
pursuit tumbling over the out-hanging heels of the wretched runaway, 
exclaimed confidentially in the ears of the audience, “ By ivins, he as 
eluded us.” Such must have been the good fortune of Charles, and the 
stupid blindness of the troop, when the former sat on the forest’s edge, 
and the latter never noted him. 

This incident being over, another soon afterwards ensued of an 
equally melodramatic character. Charles and Penderell, after travelling 


212 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


two nights on foot, had put up at the house of one of Penderell’s 
brothers; but it was not thought safe to remain in it, and his Majesty 
was recommended to an oak, whose parent stem would afford friendly 
shelter, while all the junior branches might be thoroughly relied upon. 
The king having supplied himself with bread, cheese, and beer, which 
could not have been table beer, for there was no table to put it on— 
though there were plenty of leaves—made the best of the imperfect 
accommodation that the tree afforded him. He had no sooner settled on 
his perch, and made himself a kind of nest in the boughs, than some 
soldiers entered on the 0. P. side, and looked everywhere—except in 
the right place—for the fugitive monarch. His legs, as usual, were 
visible enough, but the troopers possibly mistook them for a pair of 
stockings hanging up to dry, and they were not even struck by the 
shoes at the end, that should have awakened them to the value of the 
booty. The most infantine participators in the game of Hide and 
Seek, would not have been at fault under circumstances of a similar 
kind; and there can scarcely be a doubt, that if any urchin had only 
raised a suggestive cry of “ Hot beans and butter !” Charles would have 
been laid by the heels without a scruple on the part of those who were 
in search of him. 

Leaving his Majesty’s legs to dangle in the air, and allowing credulity 
to score one for his heels on the cribbage-board of fancy, we proceed to 
contemplate Charles in a more dignified position on the throne of 
England. He arrived at Dover on the 25th of May, with his two 
little brothers, who had grown to men, but were still called “ the boys ” by 
those who remembered them before their exile from the land of their 
forefathers. Monk received the royal trio, who rode to the hotel in the 
same hackney-coach with the general, forgetting that there had been a 
good deal of truly monkish cunning in the conduct of that individual, 
who being the latest with his service, obtained the favour due to much 
earlier and older royalists. 

The principle of “ First come, first served !” was in this instance laid 
aside, and the rule of “last come served best,” was ungratefully 
adopted. A most unreasonable reaction towards royalty now ensued, 
and the anxiety to deal mercilessly with the regicides ran into a most 
sanguinary extreme, surpassing in fury the most bloodthirsty predilec¬ 
tions of the fiercest republicans. 

Both Houses of Parliament met, and an Act of Indemnity was 
passed for the benefit of the king’s enemies; but, like the old story of 
Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, most of the persons interested 
in the Act were excepted from its provisions. Nineteen of the regicides 
surrendered ; and ten more being in custody, formed a batch of twenty- 
nine to be brought to trial. A commission was issued for the purpose, 
and on the 9th of October, 1660, the proceedings began before a 
tribunal of thirty-four, many of whom had been Long-Parliament Men, 
masked Presbyterians, or miscellaneous scamps, of quite as revolutionary 
a turn as some of the prisoners submitted to their judgment. Sir 



THE . ROYAL OAK, 



/■// 






























































































































CHAP. I.] 


TRIALS OF THE REGICIDES. 


213 


Hardress Waller, who was number one on the list, had prepared a very 
fine speech in his defence; but looking over the document, he made up 
his mind that it was rather strong, and could certainly do no good, upon 
which he pleaded guilty. Harrison and Carew, who came next, made 
each a very eloquent and enthusiastic harangue, glorying in their 
respective acts, by which they laid down their lives as an investment for 
a reversionary interest in the good books of posterity. 

Henry Marten, “ the wit of the House of Commons,” made a most 
dismal attempt to laugh the matter off, and to joke the prosecution out 
of court; but his humour, notwithstanding its extreme heaviness, had no 
weight with his judges. He began by demanding the benefit of the 
Act of Oblivion, and in a lame bon mot claimed to be allowed to forget 
himself. He was sharply told he must plead guilty or not guilty, but 
he insisted on the benefit of the Act of Indemnity, saying his name did 
not appear among the exceptions, and that in fact he had never been an 
exceptionable character. Irritated by these dismal jokes—so insulting 
to the understanding of the court—the Solicitor-General ordered the 
Act to be produced, with the name of Henry Marten inserted legibly 
enough, when “ the droll,” with a miserable quibble not even amounting 
to a pun, exclaimed, “ My name is not so—it is Harry Marten.” This 
unmeaning objection being very properly overruled, the “ mad wag ” 
endeavoured to stand upon his reputation for mad waggery, and urged 
that being known as a wit, he had done nothing with a serious intention. 
He was, however, told that regicide in sport was high treason in earnest, 
w r hen, after some few r further attempts at facetiousness, the “ witty 
Harry Marten ” was found guilty, and retired cutting wretched j okes 
upon the disgusted turnkey. 

The court, which, in order to get beforehand with its work, had 
prepared most of its verdicts before the trials commenced, had already 
determined on fixing the act of cutting off the king’s head on the 
shoulders of William Hewlett. Everything went to prove that the 
common hangman had performed the sanguinary job for thirty pounds, 
but the commissioners had made up their minds, and were unwilling to 
open the very small parcels, for the purpose of looking at the charge by 
the light of the evidence. Hewlett was condemned, but people beginning 
to talk of the glaring injustice of the verdict, he was eventually saved 
from capital punishment. Poor Garland was another of the intended 
victims, and it may well be said that Garland by his heroism has made 
himself a wreath of immortality. He would have pleaded guilty to the 
accusation of having signed the death-warrant of Charles, but indignantly 
repudiated the charge of having insulted the fallen sovereign. “ I was 
a regicide, it is true,” exclaimed Garland, “ but as for the assertion of 
my having been base enough to spit in the face of the king, I throw it 
back in the face of my enemies.” 

Upon this the Solicitor-General called as a witness a low, needy 
fellow, named Clench, who swore not only to the spitting by Garland, 
but to the king having wiped his face immediately afterwards and from 


214 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book vn 


the supplementary lie told by Clench to support the first falsehood, 
the term Clencher obviously took its origin. Poor Garland was found 
guilty, of course, but his life was not eventually forfeited. The exe¬ 
cutions of the regicides were very numerous, and conducted in a spirit 
of barbarous brutality, that excited a great deal of disgust at the time 
among all but those who were animated by the desire to retaliate the 
atrocities that the other side had committed. It is, in fact, a very 
common fault among philanthropists, and others who rush about with a 
strong sense of great social wrongs, to commit some other wrongs equally 
great, or even greater, upon the persons by whom their virtuous 
indignation may have been excited. 

We feel naturally interested in the fate of poor Harry Marten, the 
“funny-man ” of the long Parliament. While in prison under sentence 
of death, he was visited by some aristocratic friends, who recommended 
the wit to petition in a jocose strain, but his humour had become 
exceedingly dreary in his dingy dungeon. He contrived, nevertheless, 
to serve up one small pun in a lengthy document begging for mercy ; 
and though the Commons did not see the fun of the thing, the Lords 
good-naturedly took it for granted that, coming from a professed wag, 
there must be “ something in it,” and with a patronising “ Ha, ha !— 
very clever—amazingly droll! ”—the Peers remitted his sentence. 

Though Royalty had risen wonderfully in public respect, there was 
nothing in the conduct of the royal family to render it respectable. The 
Queen-Mother, Henrietta Maria, returned to England with an extensive 
French suite, and ran into debt even over her head and ears, which being 
very long, may enable us to measure the depths of her extravagance. The 
utmost dissoluteness prevailed at court, and the king’s brother, the Duke 
of York, had married—several months later than he should have done 
—Miss Anne Plyde, the daughter of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. 
This consummate old humbug affected to be much pained at the degra¬ 
dation of his prince, through his marriage with Clarendon’s own 
daughter, and the Chancellor, affecting to doubt the fact, declared, if it 
were true, “ The woman should go to the Tower and have her head 
chopped off!” in accordance with an Act of Parliament he would himself 
draw up for that puipose. All this unnatural abuse of his own child, 
instead of earning him the smallest respect, simply rendered him 
infamous in the minds of all but those who believed he was acting a part, 
and who regarded him, therefore, as simply contemptible. He is believed 
to have been secretly engaged in promoting the marriage against which 
he publicly protested ; and the recognition of his daughter as Duchess 
of York, which soon afterwards took place, was purchased, it is said, 
by Clarendon’s paying the debts of the Queen-Mother, by, of course, 
robbing the people. 

It is impossible to say much for the magnanimity of the royalist party, 
whose triumph was signalised by continued acts of mingled ferocity and 
littleness. A law w r as passed attainting Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and 
Bradshaw, who were dragged from their graves in Westminster Abbey 


CHAP. I.] 


EXTENSION OF ROYAL PREROGATIVE. 


215 


and hanged at Tyburn, on the 30th of January, the day of the death of 
Charles I.—in celebration of his martyrdom. This was certainly one 
way of crying quits with the regicides in the game of butchery, and both 
sides were thus brought to the same degraded level. The royalist 
‘resurrectionists having commenced the desecration of the dead, did not 
relinquish their loathsome pursuit until they had ex-humed, as we learn 
from Hume, the remains of Cromwell’s highly-respectable mother and 
inoffensive daughter, as well as numerous others who had done nothing 
in life to render them in death the objects of enmity. 

All parties now began to claim the merit of the Restoration in the 
hope of obtaining a reward, and bills for old arrears of alleged loyalty 
were sent in to the government. The Scotch were of course not back¬ 
ward in looking after the profits due, or supposed to be due, on account 
of any assistance rendered to Charles in his misfortunes ; but the king 
and his friends having been sold two or three times over by the crafty 
Caledonians, his Majesty thought they had really made their full money 
out of him. When, therefore, the Marquis of Argyle asked permission 
to pay his respects, a friendly reply was despatched to bring him up to 
town; but on his arrival at Whitehall, he had scarcely knocked at the 
door when he found he was regularly let in, for a guard tapping him on 
the shoulder, walked him off as a traitor. He was sent to be tried by 
his own countrymen; for as some of them would profit by his death, 
it was considered that making them his judges would be a sure method 
of getting rid of him. The result realised the estimate formed of the 
character of the Scotch, who condemned him and hanged him as a 
matter of beesness, because there was a small profit to be got out of the 
transaction. Poor Argyle had been the very party who had put the 
crown on the king’s head a few years before, at Scone; but, “ Life.” said 
he, on the scaffold, “ is a toss up, and it’s heads I lose on this melan¬ 
choly occasion.” 

On the 8th of May, 1661, a new Parliament met, which lasted even 
longer than the Long one par excellence , and indeed, the lengths to 
which it went might alone have entitled it to the epithet bestowed on 
its republican predecessor. The cavaliers had a very large majority in 
this assembly, and the off-hand manner in which it dealt with the country 
rendered the words cavalier treatment and bad treatment synonymous. 
The royal prerogative was the object of nearly all the acts of this 
assembly; and the rights of monarchy were being continually declared, 
in the same spirit as the artist who wrote “ This is a lion,” under his 
picture, because there would have been room for doubt, in the absence of 
the epigraph. Thus, the frequent assertions of the Parliament that the 
king was paramount, and indeed absolute, were tolerably good evidence 
of the fact that the position is not altogether incontrovertible 

After a brief session, in which the Cavaliers helped themselves to 
T60,000, by way of compensation-money, and voted a supply to the 
king, the Parliament adjourned from the 30th of July till the 28th of 
November, by which time Charles and his minister, Clarendon, had got 


216 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[book vir. 


up a little mare’s-nest of a pretended conspiracy, to give a new impetus 
to the prevailing spirit of inconsiderate loyalty. The servile Commons 
called at once for a few supplementary executions, and with this view it 
was resolved to look through the back numbers, or stock remaining on 
hand, of the regicides. Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay, and Sir 
Robert Wallop, were “unearthed ” from the obscurity into which they had 
crept, and were dragged on sledges, with ropes round their necks, to 
Tyburn and back again. Poor Wallop’s name was cruelly made suggestive 
of ruffianly attacks, which, by turning the first person present—Wallop 
—into the participle in ing, the reader will at once mentally realise, 

The subserviency of the Parliament to Charles was absolutely 
sickening, and it is a fact worthy of remark, that the epithet “ most 
religious,” applied to the sovereign in portions of the Church service, 
was bestowed originally upon this profane and immoral reprobate. His 
necessities, or rather his extravagances, were supplied lavishly by Par¬ 
liament, who voted him a hearth-tax for every fire-place, or in other words, 
gave him a draft upon every chimney. Notwithstanding the odious 
domestic character of Charles, every match-making old mother of royalty 
abroad endeavoured to get off some daughter by offering her as a wife 
to the heartless libertine. “ He put himself up to auction,” says a 
brother historian,* and we may add that it is much to be'regretted he 
was not knocked down according to his merits. Portugal having bid 
the Princess Catherine, with half a million sterling, and other contingent 
advantages, the bargain was struck, and a ship sent over for herself and 
her dowry. 

The royal marriage had recently taken place, when that unhappy 
weathercock, Sir Harry Vane, was brought to trial for having compassed 
the death of Charles II., merely by accepting employment under the 
Republican Government. Relying on the indemnity, Vane had gone to 
live at Hampstead, when he found there was something in the wind which 
gave him an unfavourable turn; but it was too late for him to escape, 
and he was accordingly sent to the Tower. 

After the fashion of the period, poor Vane was condemned in the 
opinion of his judges before he was tried, and he was not even allowed 
to make a last dying speech; for the sheriff snatched the document from 
which he was reading, drove away the reporters who were taking notes, 
and ordered the drums to strike up a rataplan , which overwhelmed the 
voice of the gallant soldier. 

The exuberant loyalty of the people towards Charles received a severe 
check, when, looking round for something to sell, in order to support his 
extravagant habits, he determined to throw Dunkirk into the market. 
Spain, Holland, and France were all in the field as customers for the 
lot, which was eventually made over to the last-named power for a few 
thousands, payable within three years by bills, which were discounted at 
an alarming sacrifice. 

Numerous Acts of oppression were passed by Charles, assisted by his 
* Mr. Me Farlane’s Pictorial History of England, Yol. III. 


CHAP. I.] 


THE FIRE OF LONDON. 


217 


most servile Parliament; and among them, the Conventicle Act, -which 
forbade the Nonconformists from assembling any where but in the esta¬ 
blished churches, under the penalty of transportation or long imprison¬ 
ment. Every loft, attic, or barn, where the Dissenters had got together 
for psalm-singing purposes, was searched, and the occupants were 
dragged away to the nearest prison. 

The year 1665 was dreadfully signalised by the plague of London, 
from which the king and court fled to Oxford, as if they were aware 
that, by themselves at all events, the awful visitation was thoroughly 
merited. While, however, the profligate king and his dissolute com¬ 
panions escaped the physical consequences of a plague, the abandoned 
crew carried with them wherever they went the malaria of a moral 
pestilence. During the early part of 1666, the fever in the metropolis 
subsided, and Charles with his courtiers came sneaking back to town, 
where they resumed their old habits as the “ fast men ” of the period. 

On the 2nd of September, in the same year, about the middle of the 
night, some smoke issued from a baker’s house near London Bridge; 
but the watchman on duty, being asleep as a matter of course, took no 
notice of the incident. The fire continued its progress unchecked, for the 
people instead of trying to put it out, which they might have done at 
first, pumps as they were, began to speculate on the subject of its origin. 
For some time it was reported that Harry Marten, “ the wit of the 
House of Commons,” as he was, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, 
called, had set the Thames on fire by some brilliant flashes, and the 
ignition of the river had, it was alleged, communicated itself to London 
Bridge, and thence to the shop of the baker. Others declared the 
French had done the mischief, and instead of arresting the flames, the 
mob began arresting all the foreigners. 

The usual casualties contributed to heighten the destructive effect of 
the fire, for the parish engine had in the hurry of the moment come out 
in the middle of the night without its hose, and the New River had 
been smoking its pipe or soldering it for the purposes of repair on the 
previous day, and neither of these aids to anti-combustion was avail¬ 
able. Poor Clarendon, the Chancellor, who had got the reputation of 
being a great moral engine, was disturbed in his sleep by some mis¬ 
chievous boys, who with a cry of “ Fire ! fire !” called upon the great 
moral engine to come and spout away upon the burning city. 

The devouring element continued its tremendous supper without 
interruption, and there was, unfortunately, considerable difficulty in 
administering anything to drink to allay the burning heat which was 
rapidly consuming the whole metropolis. The most furious conflagra¬ 
tion will wear itself out in time, and the Fire of London, after giving 
the inhabitants several “ Nights wi’ Burns,” brought its own progress 
to a conclusion. It is gratifying to be enabled to state, that, even 
in the seventeenth century, the English were remarkable for their 
charity, and the calamities that fell upon the metropolis—particularly 
the fire_stirred up the public benevolence to the fullest extent. 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


218 


[book vir. 


and inspired all classes with a warmth of feeling that was quite 
appropriate. 

Charles having got all he could out of the people, for the purposes of 
war, thought he might as well be paid on both sides, and began to 
think of selling peace to his enemies. He entered into negociations 
with the Dutch, hut before they had come to terms, he commenced 
cutting down the expenses by selling the furniture of his fleets to the 
dealers in marine stores, and dismissing his soldiers, in order to put 
their pay into his own pocket. He was properly served for his selfish 
parsimony by De Ruyter, the Dutch admiral, who, hearing that Charles 
was doing everything upon a low and paltry scale, dashed at the 
Medway, surprised Sheerness, and sacked not only the place, hut 
several cargoes of coals that were lying there. Upon the old English 
principle of guarding the stable door after the furtive removal of the 
horse, Charles prepared to collect a force to guard his country against the 
injury it had already experienced. Twelve thousand men were enrolled; 
but, during the process of enrolment, the enemy had got safely off, and 
when the soldiers were assembled, it occurred suddenly to the king that 
he had no means of paying them. As the Parliament seemed quite 
unwilling to take this little responsibility off his hands, the twelve 
thousand men were disbanded, all of them grumbling furiously at having 
been made fools of by the bankrupt monarch. Peace was concluded with 
De Ruyter just as if nothing had happened; and though the English 
did not obtain all they asked, they got the colony of New York, which 
was destined to give them so much trouble at a far distant period. 

The people were by no means satisfied with the terms of the treaty, 
and as national ill-humour must always have a victim of some kind, 
poor old Clarendon, the Chancellor, was pounced upon, The Noncon¬ 
formists hated him because he was a high churchman; the high church 
party hated him because he wasn’t; while the papists hated him, they 
didn’t exactly know why; and the courtiers hated him because they had 
got a large balance of general animosity on hand, which they were deter¬ 
mined to expend upon somebody. Clarendon, in fact, was the grand centre 
in which all the detestation of the country appeared to meet, or he might 
be more appropriately called the bull’s-eye of the target towards which 
the shafts of public malignity were directed. Clarendon had been a 
faithful servant to Charles, but the monarch’s stock of gratitude had 
always been very small, and what little he once possessed he had paid 
away long ago, to less worthy objects. He accordingly sent to the 
Chancellor for the Great Seal, but Clarendon, pleading gout for not 
immediately leaving home, promised that when he could get out he 
would call and leave the official emblem at the palace. Chaides replied, 
that as to Clarendon’s postponing his resignation till he could get out, 
he must get out at once, if he wished to avoid an ejection of a not very 
agreeable character. Urged by this formidable message, he took 
Whitehall in his way during a morning’s walk, and having seen the 
lung, made a desperate but useless struggle to retain the seal, which he 


CHAP. I.] 


THE CABAL MINISTRY. 


219 


was forced to surrender. His misfortunes did not end here, for the 
Commons impeached him; and Clarendon, as if owning the not very 
soft impeachment, absconded to France, where he ended his days 
in exile. 

A change of ministry ensued on the downfall of Clarendon, and a 
government was formed which gave rise to almost the only constitutional 
pun which we find recorded in history. The cabinet received the name 
of the Cabal, from the five initial letters of the names of the quintette 
to whom public affairs were intrusted. This great national acrostic 
deserves better treatment than it has hitherto received at the hands of the 
historians; and taking down our rhyming dictionary from the cupboard 
in which it had been shelved, we proceed to invest the political jeu 
d'esprit with the dignity of poetry. 

C was a Clifford, the Treasury’s chief; 

A was an Arlington, brilliant and brief; 

B was a Buckingham—horrible scamp ; 

A was an Ashley, of similar stamp ; 

L was a Lauderdale, Buckingham’s pal. 

Now take their initials to form a Cabal. 

These five individuals looked upon politics as a trade, and principles 
as the necessary capital, which must be turned over and over again in 
order to realise extraordinary profits. They were all of them out- 
pensioners on the bounty of France, and they soon persuaded Charles 
that it was better to receive a fixed salary from abroad, than trust for 
his supplies to the caprice of a Parliament. The king, therefore, 
intrigued with several States at the same moment, and was taking money 
from two or three different governments, on the strength of treaties with 
each, some of which he all the while intended to violate. He neverthe¬ 
less did not disdain the money of his own people, and extracted a sum 
of £310,000 from the public pocket, in the shape of a supply from 
Parliament. 

The domestic proceedings of the king were always of the most 
disreputable kind, and he had lately taken up with one Mary or Molly 
Davies, a jig dancer, who pretended to come of a very ancient family 
in Moldavia. This wretched little ballet-girl was introduced at court 
by the king, who was positively ambitious of being thought rather 
“fast,” an epithet which is generally bestowed on loose characters. He 
had also formed an intimacy with Eleanor, or Nell GWynne, originally 
a vendor of “ oranges, apples, nuts, and pears,” but subsequently an 
actress; and it was said at the time—which is some excuse perhaps for 
our saying it again—that Eleanor sounded the knell of older favourites. 
Lady Castlemaine, who went by the name of “ the lady,” was cut by the 
king, in favour of the fruit girl and the figurante. 

Notwithstanding the rivalry to which “ the lady ” was exposed, her 
influence over the mind of Charles—if we may be allowed the allegory— 
was still very considerable; and in the year 1670, which was very soon 


220 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII 


after Miss M. Davies had danced herself into the good graces of the 
king, he conferred the title of Duchess of Cleveland on Lady Castle- 
maine. As many of our aristocratic families are fond of tracing their 
origin to its very remotest source, we shall perhaps be thanked for 
assisting some of them in the search to find the root of their nobility. 
We however decline the, to us, wholly uninteresting task, for w r e are 
quite content to take our Peerage as it comes, and estimate its members 
for their personal worth, without reference to their ancestors. We 
certainly should not value the vinegar in our cruet any the more if we 
knew it comprised within it a dissolved pearl, nor should we treasure 
a lump of charcoal on account of its supposed relationship to some late 
lamented diamond. 

With our accustomed fairness, we on the other hand have no wish to 
throw a degraded and abandoned ancestry into the faces of those who do 
not presume upon birth, but are decently thankful for its worldly 
advantages. It is only when we find rank turning up its nose at all 
inferior stations that we feel delight in seizing the offending snout, and 
driving home the iron ring, to show a connection between the proboscis 
of pride and the humbler materials of humanity. 


CHAP. II. ] 


CHARLES OPENS PARLIAMENT 


221 


CHAPTER THE SECOND 

CHARLES THE SECOND (CONTINUED). 



Charles opened Parliament in person, on the 14th of February 
1670; and, in imitation of Louis XIV., introduced some soldiers into 
the procession, which had hitherto, in England, been limited to the 
boys, the beef-eaters, and the blackguards. The speech from the throne 
had one advantage over those of our own day, for it was perfectly intel¬ 
ligible, inasmuch as it told the Commons in very plain terms that 
Charles “ must have cash ”—a necessity he shared with the bankrupt 
linendrapers and the cheap crockery dealers of a much later aera. 
Taxation was therefore the order of the day, and after putting a tax on 
everything in the shape of property or income, it was proposed to 
attempt the forcing of a sanguineous extract from stone, by putting a 
tax on actors’ salaries. This, however, was so preposterous an idea, 
that it was not followed up ; for unless the poor players had been 
allowed to pay the impost in gallery checks, leaden dumps, and the 
other rubbish that forms the currency of the stage, the taxes received 
from the dramatic fraternity would have given the collectors a sinecure. 
Though enough money to pay off the National Debt is frequently 
distributed in a single scene by a stage philanthropist, or left by an old 
uncle in the course of “a tag” to a farce, there would be little prospect 
of the business of the country being carried on if the supplies were 
contingent on such resources as those which the actors dispose of with 
the most lavish generosity 

VOL. II. 


Q 













































































922 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK VII. 

The early part of the session was signalised by a frightful example 
that was made of Sir John Coventry, who had ventured upon a joke— 
an undertaking at all times perilous, and frequently entailing upon the 
manufacturer the most alarming consequences. Sir John endeavoured 
to be witty on the subject of a tax, but the joke, which is happily lost in 
the mist of ages, was of so wretched a description that a conspiracy was 
actually formed for the purpose of bringing the perpetrator to punish¬ 
ment. The joke had reference to a private matter into which it was 
thought Coventry had no right to poke his nose, and this being the 
offending feature, was severely handled by his assailants, who took hold 
of it as a prominent point, and savagely maltreated it. This was a 
specimen of the practical joking adopted by the “ fast men ” of the time 
of Charles II., but the king was obliged to affect disapprobation of such 
an act, and a law against cutting and maiming was immediately passed, 
to protect all future noses from the fate that had placed Coventry’s nose 
in the hands of those with whom he had fallen into bad odour. 

In the same year the notorious Colonel Blood provided matter for 
the penny-a-liner of his own day, and the historian of ours, by two or 
three crimes of a very audacious character. One of these was to waylay 
the Duke of Ormond as he was returning from a dinner-party in the 
City, and was, from that very circumstance, most unlikely to be in a fit 
state to defend himself. His Grace was placed upon a horse, and 
carried towards Tyburn, but his coachman having undertaken to over¬ 
take Blood, soon came up, to the consternation of the latter, who could 
not understand what the former was driving at. Blood, finding the 
coachman had the whip-hand of him, oozed quietly away, but being 
incapable of keeping out of mischief, he was soon detected in an attempt 
to steal the Crown jewels from the Tower. This act of crowning 
audacity, as the merry monarch lugubriously termed it, induced Charles 
to wish to “regale himself,” as he said, “ with the sight of a fellow who 
could be bold enough to attempt to steal the regalia." The monarch, 
who had a sort of sympathy with blackguardism of every description, 
was mightily taken with Blood, whose bluntness made him pass for a 
very sharp blade, and the ruffian was not only allowed to go at large, 
but received grants of land without the smallest ground for such a mark 
of royal favour. 

Charles and his people did not go on together in a spirit of mutual 
confidence, for from a sort of instinctive appreciation of his own demerits, 
he was afraid to trust his subjects, while they reciprocated that distrust, 
from a due sense of the king’s worthlessness. He had therefore entered 
into some foreign alliances, of which he was fearful they would disap¬ 
prove, and he had accordingly prorogued the Parliament, in the cow¬ 
ardly spirit of a man who, having some bills he cannot meet, declines 
meeting his creditors. Supplies were, however, necessary, and these he 
secured by going down to the Exchequer, which he robbed of every 
farthing deposited there by the merchants, who had been in the habit of 
leaving their loose cash in the hands of the government, at a handsome 


CHAP. II.] 


WAR WITH HOLLAND. 


223 


rate of interest. When remonstrated with on the subject of this dis¬ 
graceful robbery, he defended himself on the aide-toi principle, declaring 
we were always told to help ourselves, and that he had accordingly helped 
himself to all he could lay his hands upon. • 

Being now in league with France, England waged war upon Holland, 
but the Dutch metal of that country soon displayed itself. The nation 
found in William, Prince of Orange, a leader who did not give exactly 
the quarter implied in his name, but was merciful as far as circum¬ 
stances would permit to all his enemies. Fie expected sympathy from 
the English Parliament, which Charles was afraid to call until he found 
himself without a penny in his pocket, just like the acknowledged scamp 
of domestic life, as represented in the British Drama. The impossi¬ 
bility of proceeding without supplies urged the king to take the dreaded 
step, and the writs for summoning the Commons should have been 
couched in the old popular form commencing, “ Dilly, dilly, come and 
be killed ; ” for the Commons were only called together to be victimised. 
It is a beautiful fact in natural history, that even the donkey will kick 
when his patience is too sorely tried; and the Commons, who had been 
wretchedly subservient during Charles II.’s reign, began at last to show 
symptoms of opposition under the insults they experienced. They were 
angry at the war with Holland, and threatened to impeach Buckingham ; 
but Charles, comforting his favourite with the exclamation, “ Don't be 
alarmed, my Buck! ” took the utmost pains to screen him. A nego¬ 
tiation was commenced for a peace with Holland, but this was, after all, 
nothing better than a Plolland blind, for Charles’s predilection for a 
French alliance was still perceptible. This occasioned much dissatis¬ 
faction, and the people, being in the habit of frequenting coffee-houses, 
talked about the matter over their cups, and were very £aucy over their 
saucers, which induced Charles to order the closing of all those places 
where temperate refreshment was obtainable. Thousands to whom 
coffee and bread and butter formed a daily, and in many cases an only 
meal, were horrified at this arrangement; while many who, not having 
a steak in the country, got a chop in town, were disgusted beyond 
measure at the order, which extended to taverns as well as to tea and 
coffee-shops. A mandate which would have dashed the muffin from the 
mouth of moderation, and turned all the tea into another channel, was 
certain not to be obeyed, and the doors of the marts for Mocha in your 
own mugs—a term synonymous with mouths—continued open as usual. 

Urged bv the remonstrances and clamour of the people, Charles 
entered into an alliance with William, Prince of Orange, who married 
the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of James, the young lady being 
used, like so much of the cement distinguished as “ Poo-Loo’s,” for the 
purpose of mending the breakages that had occurred on both sides. 
William was as deep as Charles, and soon began to pooh! pooh! the idea 
of having cemented, d la Poo Loo, a rupture of such long standing, and he 
positively refused to fall into Charles’s, projects. 

The state of Scotland was not more satisfactory than that of England 

q 2 


224 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


at this time, for the Covenanters were striving vigorously against the 
constituted authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical. Lauderdale, who 
represented the king, enrolled twenty thousand militia-men ; hut had he 
enrolled, or rolled up in old coats, as many scarecrows, they would have 
been quite as serviceable as the new soldiery. 

The recent regicide having caused a reaction in favour of royalty, it 
became a common trick with the king’s party to get up a report of the 
intended assassination of Charles II., whenever the stock of popularity 
was running rather short, and the people seemed to be getting dissatisfied 
with the government. In the absence of real objects of suspicion, there 
is never any difficulty among Englishmen in drawing upon their inven¬ 
tive resources for materials to make a panic, whether monetary, political, 
or otherwise; and about the year 1670, rumour was very busy in manu¬ 
facturing all sorts of plots against the life of the sovereign. On the 
morning of the 13tli of August, which happened to be one of the dog- 
days, Charles was walking with his dogs in the Park, when Kirby, the 
chemist—a highly respectable man, but an egregious blockhead—drew to 
the monarch’s side, and whispered in the royal ear, “ Keep within the com¬ 
pany ; your enemies have a design upon your life, and you may be shot 



Charles is informed of a plot against his precious life. 


in this very walk.” Charles, who was a little flurried, desired to know 
the meaning of this warning, when Kirby the chemist offered to produce 








































































CHAP. II.] 


THE TITUS OATES PLOT. 


225 


one Doctor Tongue, a weak-minded and credulous old parson, who said 
he had heard that two fellows, named Grove and Pickering, were making 
arrangements for smashing Charles on the very first opportunity. This 
Tongue was so exceedingly slippery that he could not be believed; but 
U keep himself out of a pickle, he brought a pile of papers, containing a 
copious account of the alleged conspiracy. He alleged that he had found 
them pushed under his door ; but we cannot very easily believe that any 
conspirators would have been so foolish as to go about, dropping pro¬ 
miscuously into letter-boxes, or thrusting under street doors, the proofs 
of their designs on the sovereign. 

Upon further inquiry being prosecuted, it turned out that a low fellow, 
named Titus Oates, was at the bottom of this plot, to raise the apprehen¬ 
sions of the public. Oates was a man of straw, the son of an anabaptist 
preacher; and our antiquarian recollections have reminded us, that from 
the extraordinary propensity of Oates to deceive by false representations, 
the application of the term “ chaff,” to stories at variance with fact, 
most likely owes its origin. Happy had it been for many in those days, 
if Oates had been so dealt with, that the chaff had been all thrashed out 
of him. The fellow is described by a writer of the period, as “ a low 
man of an ill cut and very short neck,” with a mouth in the middle of 



T. Oates, Esq. 


liis face; “ whereas,” says the old biographer, “ the nose should always 
form the scenter.” “ If you had put a compass between his lips,” con¬ 
tinues the quaint chronicler we quote, “ you might have swept his nose, 
forehead, and chin, within the same diameter.” This places the nasal 
organ in a high, but certainly not a very proud position, bringing it 
nearly flush with the eyes, and making it a sort of inverted comma on 
the summit of that index which the face is said to afford to the human 
character 



226 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII 


The stories got up by Oates were of the most elaborately absurd 
description, betraying an equal ignorance of grammar, geography, and 
every other branch of information, polite or otherwise. He contradicted 
himself over and over again; but this only rendered his story the more 
marvellous, and as the lower orders of English were always fond of the 
most extravagant fictions, the terrific tales of Oates were not too absurd 
to be swallowed. He became the most successful political novelist ever 
known, and received a pension of £1200 a year, besides lodgings in 
Whitehall, by way of recognition for his services in contributing to the 
amusement of the people, by frightening them out of their propriety. 

The success of Oates induced a number of imitators, each of whom 
contrived to discover a plot to murder the king, with a complete set of 
written documents, to prove the existence of the foul conspiracy. One of 
these speculators on royal and public credulity was a man named William 
Bedloe, a fellow who, having failed as a thief, and been detected as a 
cheat, attempted to repair his fortunes by turning patriot. With the 
usual injudicious energy of mere imitation, he went much further than 
even Oates himself in the audacity of his statements. These two 
miscreants between them sent many innocent people to the scaffold, for 
if Oates only hinted his suspicion of a plot, Bedloe was at hand to 
swear to the persons involved in it. As surely as Oates declared his 
knowledge of some intended assassination, Bedloe would come forward 
to indicate not only the assassins themselves, but to point to the very 
weapons they would have used, when, if it was replied they did not 
belong to the parties against whom the charge was made, he would not 
scruple to swear that the instruments would have been purchased on 
the next day, for the deadly purpose. All the rules of evidence were 
outraged without the slightest remorse, and poor Starkie * would have 
gone stark staring mad, could he have witnessed the flagrant violations 
of those principles which he has expounded with so much ability. 

The Parliament which sat during these proceedings, was in existence 
for seventeen years, and has gained, or rather has deserved, an undying 
reputation by the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act. This glorious 
statute prohibited the sending of any one to prison beyond the sea, and 
allowed any one in jail to insist on being carried before a judge to 
inquire the cause of his detention. A troublesome captive might there¬ 
fore, by pretending never to be satisfied with the explanation of the 
Court, keep running perpetually backwards and forwards to ascertain 
the reason of his captivity. The Oates conspiracy had not yet undergone 
the winnowing which the breath of public opinion—universally right, 
in the long run—was sure at one time or another to bestow, when a 
new affair, called the Meal-Tub Plot, burst on the attention of the 
community. A fellow of the name of Dangerfield affected to have 
discovered a new field of danger in an alleged design to set up a new 
form of government. This reprobate had been in the pillory, where it 

* Starkie and Phillips are, at this day, the two acknowledged authorities on the Law of 
Evidence. 




































































































































































































































CHAP. II.] 


THE MEAL-TUB PLOT. 


227 


is believed tlie quantity of eggs that met his eye, gave him the notion 
of hatching a plot, and he obtained the assistance of one Cellier, a 
midwife, to bring the project into existence. There was something very 
melodramatic in the mode of getting up accusations of treason in the 
days of Dangerfield, for it was only necessary to drop some seditious 
papers in a man’s house, or stuff the prospectus of a revolution into his 
pocket, in order to make him responsible for all the consequences of a 
crime he had perhaps never dreamed about. Colonel Mansel was the 
intended victim in the Dangerfield affair; and some excise officers who 
had been sent to his lodgings under the pretence of being ordered to 
search for contraband goods, found the heads of a conspiracy cut and 
dried, crammed in among his bed-clothes. The Colonel succeeded 
in showing that he had nothing to do with the transaction, and declared 
that, “ as he had made his bed, so was he content to lie upon it.” 
His words carried conviction home to the minds of all, and Dangerfield 
was obliged to admit the imposture he had practised; but he confessed 
another conspiracy, the particulars of which were found regularly 
written out and deposited in a meal-tub in the house of Cellier, the 
midwife. 

It is evident from numerous instances, that conspirators in those 
days were very apt to carry their designs no further than committing 
them to paper, and carefully depositing in some place or other the 
records of their crime, so that in case of detection the evidence against 
themselves would be complete and irresistible. Thus had the plotters 
with whom Dangerfield had been acting in concert, put away in a meal- 
tub the evidence of their intended proceedings, for no other purpose 
which we can perceive, than the ultimate finding of the documents, and 
the furtherance of the ends of justice in the true poetical fashion. Lady 
Powis was implicated in this affair, and was sent to the Tower; but 
the Grand Jury ignored the bill against her, while Cellier, the midwife, 
who had aided in the miserable abortion, was tried and acquitted at the 
Old Bailey. 

The rumour, or the reality of conspiracies against the royal family, did 
not prevent Charles from throwing himself into the pleasures, or rather 
the dissipations, for which his Court was remarkable. Though political 
liberty was exceedingly scarce during his reign, he did not discourage 
the taking of liberties in private life, among those who formed the society 
by which he was surrounded. The palace was one continued scene of 
that degrading excitement which passes sometimes by the name of gaiety, 
and nearly every evening was devoted to that sort of entertainment 
which is sought by the snobs and shop-boys of our own day in the Casinos 
and masked balls. The “ Fast ” mania, which thrusts at this moment 
the penny cheroot between the lips of infancy, drags the clerk from the 
desk to the dancing rooms, and perhaps urges his felonious hand to his 
master’s till, had in the time of Charles II. corrupted the whole nation, 
from the highest to the lowest, so that even the best society—and bad 
indeed was the best—bore the impress of the example that was furnished 


228 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


by the king himself. The palace balls were accordingly conducted in a 
manner that would disgrace the humblest of modern hops, and in these 
days deprive of its license any place of public entertainment where such 
behaviour "would be permitted by the conductors of the establishment. 



Nolle lord. —“ I believe I’m engaged to your La’ship for the next dance.” 































































































































CHAP. III.] 


TRIAL OF LORD STAFFORD 


229 


CHAPTER THE THIRD 

CHARLES THE SECOND (CONTINUED.) 

The Duke of York, the king’s brother, being an acknowledged Papist, 
the people began to look out for a Protestant successor, and turned their 
eyes upon young Monmouth, a natural son of Charles, who was almost 
a natural in more respects than one, for his mental capacity w ? as more— 
or less—than dubious. He was, indeed, a good-looking idiot, and nothing 
more ; but, coming after such a king as Charles, the nation might have 
been satisfied with him; and, to oblige York, the fellow was formally 
declared illegitimate. The prosecution of the Catholics was carried on 
with unabated animosity; and several, among whom was the aged 
Lord Stafford, were put to death, under the pretence of advancing the 
cause of “ peace and goodness.” 

The particulars of the sacrifice of Stafford afford such a faithful sample 
of the mode in which justice was administered in the reign of Charles II., 
that, converting ourselves into “ our own reporter,” we give a brief sketch 
of the trial. The defendant in the action, which w T as in the nature of 
an impeachment, was accused of high treason, and the three witnesses 
against him were Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville, three scamps who 
made a regular business—and a very profitable one—of giving false 
evidence. Oates swore he had seen somebody deliver a document 
signed by somebody else, appointing Stafford paymaster to some army, 
which at some time or other was going to be got together somehow, 
somewhere, for the purpose of doing something against the Government, 
and in favour of the Catholics. Dugdale swnre that the accused had 
engaged him, Dugdale, to murder the king at so much a week, with the 
offer of a saintdom in the next year’s Almanack. Turberville swore 
ditto to Dugdale, and though Stafford was able to disprove their evidence 
in many very important points, the trio of perjurers had gone so boldly 
to work that there was a large balance of accusation remaining over that 
could not be upset, in consequence of the unfortunate impossibility of 
proving a negative. 

Stafford succeeded in damaging the credit of the witnesses, but as 
they came forward professedly in the character of hard swearers, who, 
so as they got the prisoners executed, were indifferent about being 
believed, the attack on their reputations affected them very little. The 
unhappy prisoner was so taken aback by the effrontery of his accusers, 
that he hardly gave himself a fair chance in his defence, which consisted 
chiefly of ejaculations expressive of wonder at the excessive impudence 
and audacity of the witnesses. Such exclamations as “ Well I’m sure ! 
what next ? ” though natural enough under the circumstances, did not 
make up, when all put together, a very eloquent speech for the defence, 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


*230 


[BOOK VII. 


and after a trial of six days’ duration, the peers, by a majority of twenty- 
four, found poor Stafford guilty. 

Sentence of death was passed upon him, but the more ignominious 
portion of the punishment having been remitted by the king s order, 
the two sheriffs were seized with a most sanguinary fit of system, and 
objected to the omission of hanging and quartering, because, as they 
said, the leaving out of these barbarities would be altogether irregular. 
In order to satisfy the scruples of these very punctilious gentlemen, 
the peers pronounced them “ over nice,” and the Commons passed a 
resolution of indemnity, by which the sheriffs were made aware that 
they would not be considered to have “ scamped ” their work, if they 
merely cut off Stafford’s head without proceeding to the more artistical 
details of butchery. 

Stafford died nobly, and the fickle populace, who had howled for his 
condemnation, began sighing and grieving at his fate; but as all this 
sympathy was almost in the nature of a jwst obit, it was of little or no 
value to the nobleman on whose behalf it was contributed. The execu¬ 
tioner himself turned tender-hearted at the last moment, and twice 
raised the fatal axe, but a coarse brute near him on the scaffold— 
perhaps one of the thwarted sheriffs—desired the headsman not to 
make two bites at a cherry, and the blow was forthwith administered. 

These excesses of the Parliament caused even the dissolute Charles 
to try the effect of dissolution ; but there was no going on for any length 
of time without a House of Commons to vote the supplies ; and the 
king, thinking to withdraw the legislature from the influence of London 
mobs, appointed the next to be held at Oxford. This arrangement gave 
great dissatisfaction to the opposition, and both parties came as if pre¬ 
pared for a battle, the speakers on each side being, no doubt, abundantly 
supplied with the leaden ammunition that is customarily used for 
debating purposes. It was during the party bickerings prevailing about 
this time, that the definitions, since so famous—and sometimes so 
infamous—of Whig and Tory, were first hit upon. The former was 
given to the popular party, merely because it had been given to some 
other popular party, in some other place, at some previous time, and 
the latter was given to the courtiers, because some popish banditti in 
Ireland had been once called Tories; * but why they had been, or why, 
if they had been, the courtiers of Charles II.’s time need have been, 
are points that the reader’s ingenuity must serve him to elucidate. 

The king had usually been civil enough to his Parliaments, but on 
the occasion of the assembly at Oxford he determined to speak his 
mind, and his speech, being a reflection of his mind, was of course very 
rambling and irregular. He complained of the last Parliament having 
been refractory, and expressed a hope that the “ present company ” 
would know how to behave themselves. He disavowed all idea of acting 
in an arbitrary manner himself, but he was thoroughly determined not 

* Somebody, who was of course a nobody, says the word Tor) is derived from Torreo, 
to roast, because the Tories were always clever at roasting their antagonists. 


CHAP. III.] 


CHARLES DISSOLVES THE PARLIAMENT. 


231 


to be “put upon ” by any one else ; and so now they knew what he 
meant, and he trusted that no misunderstanding would arise to mar 
their efforts for the public benefit. The Commons listened to all this 
with a few mental “ Oh, indeed’s ! ” “ Dear me’s ! ” “ No ! Ton your 
honour’s ! ” and “ You don’t say so’s! ” but they were not in the least 
over-awed, and they set to work exactly in the old way to choose the 
same Speaker and adopt the same measures as the last Parliament, of 
which many of them had been members. 

The new Parliament was of course found bv Charles to be no better 

V 

than any of its predecessors, and when it was a week old he jumped into 
a sedan chair, had the crown put under the seat, and the sceptre slung 
across the back, when, in reply to the chairman’s inquiry, “ Where to, 
your honour?” the sovereign, with a dignified voice, directed that he 
might be run down to the place where Parliament was sitting. This was 
the morning of the 28th of March, and Charles, bursting into the hall where 
the Lords had met, dissolved the fifth and the last of his parliaments. 

This proceeding, which, in the days of a monarchy’s decline, would 
have been exclaimed against as highly unconstitutional, was hailed as a 
piece of vigour at a time when royalty, having been recently maltreated, 
united in its favour the general sympathies. Charles, finding that 
courage was likely to tell, became very liberal of its exercise, and began 
to abuse the opponents of his policy with more than common energy. 
“ There is nothing like taking the bull by the horns,” Charles would say 
to his intimate friends, “ and John Bull especially should be taken by 
the horns, to prevent his making unpleasant use of them.” 

Shortly after the dissolution, Charles brought out for general perusal 
a justification of the course he had thought proper to pursue ; for, like 
many other people in the world, he first took a step, and then began to 
look for the reasons of his having taken it. The opposition brought out 
a reply, written by Messrs. Somers, Sydney, and Jones, but it did not 
sell, and as these gentlemen could not afford to give it away, it had very 
little influence. Charles managed to get a number of addresses 
presented to him, congratulating him on his deliverance from the repub¬ 
licans, but the Lord Mayor and Common Council having come down to 
Windsor with an address of a different kind, were told that the king was 
not at home, but they had better go to Hampton Court. On their 
arriving at the latter address there was a great deal of whispering among 
the Royal servants, who would give no other information than the words 
“ Yes, yes; it’s all right! ” At length, upon a signal from above, a 
domestic exclaimed, “ Now, then, gentlemen, you may walk up ; ” and 
on going into a room on the first floor, they found the Lord Chancellor 
sitting there, looking a,s black as thunder. His Lordship, putting on a 
voice to match his countenance, began asking them how they dared 
to come with anything like a remonstrance to their sovereign; and 
the Lord Mayor, with the Common Council, slinking timidly out of 
the room, made the best of their way back to the point they had 
started from. 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII 


832 

A few more plots of an insignificant character were got up against 
the Government, but met with no success; and the Rye-House con¬ 
spiracy, so called perhaps from the wry faces the parties put on when 
they were found out, stands out from among the rest, which have been 
long ago buried under their own insignificance. Some have suggested 
that the Rye-House plot was a name invented as a kind of sequel to 
the notion of Oates, and the conspiracy of the Meal-Tub; but the 
hypothesis is far too trifling for us to dwell upon. As it has taken a 
position of some importance in history, we must furnish a few particulars 
of this Rye-House plot, which, in the old nursery song,* taking for its 
theme the domestic arrangments of royalty, seems to have had a slight 
foreshadowing. 

On the 18th of June, 1683, one Josiah Key ling, who had formerly 
been a red-hot Whig, and was by trade a salter, was seized with the 
infamous idea of applying his skill in business to the affairs of his 
country, which he resolved to put, if he could, into a precious pickle. 
He went to Lord Dartmouth, for the purpose of revealing a conspiracy 
that had been formed to take away the king’s life; and he declared one 
Burton, a decayed cheesemonger, Thompson, a carver, who had been 
trying to carve his own fortunes in vain, and Barber, an instrument- 
maker, as his accomplices in the intended act of regicide. They were 
all to have gone down to the house of one Rumbold, a maltster, at a 
place called the Rye, where they were to have taken a chop, and cut 
off the king and his brother on their return from Newmarket. They 
were to have purchased blunderbusses, but, perhaps by some blunder, 
missing the ’bus, the London conspirators never left town, and did not 
arrive at the “ little place ” of Rumbold the maltster. The disclosures 
made by Keyling included, at first, a few names only; but, as a broth ir 
historian f has well and playfully suggested, “ he subsequently went 
into a regular crescendo movement,” and indulged in an ad libitum, 
introducing several new accompaniments to the strain he had originally 
adopted, besides adding new circumstances and dragging in new persons 
into his accusation, without the slightest regard to harmony of detail. 
He at length went off into a largo of such wide and unmeasured scope, 
that he included William Lord Russell in the charges made, and liis 
lordship was committed to the Tower. 

Lord Grey, who was also accused, was rather more fortunate; for, 
having been taken in the first instance to the home of the jailor, he had 
the satisfaction of finding that official reeling about in a state of helpless 
drunkenness. Lord Grey, perceiving that the functionary who had charge 
of him was not in a situation to appreciate any consideration that might 
be shown to him, quietly walked out at the door-way of the Serjeant’s 
house, and jumping into a boat on the Thames, hailed a ship for Hol¬ 
land. Lord Howard of Escrick, another of the alleged conspirators, was 

* Sing a song of sixpence, 

A pocket full of rye.” 

t Macfarlane’s Cabinet History of England, Vol. xiii., page 142, 


CHAP. III.] 


EXECUTION OF LORD RUSSELL. 


233 


pulled neck and heels down a chimney, into which he had climbed for 
concealment, in his house at Kniglitsbridge. His character has been 



Arrest of Lord Howard of Escrick. 


blackened almost as much as his dress, by this ignoble act, for it is 
recorded of him that when pulled out from the grate, he looked fearfully 
little. He trembled, sobbed, and wept, or in other words, had a regular 
good cry, and the tears forming channels through the soot, rendered his 
aspect exceedingly ludicrous. He at once confessed that he did not 
come out of the affair with clean hands, but he was guilty of the very 
dirty trick of implicating many of his own friends and kindred by his 
pusillanimous confession. 

Besides other less illustrious victims, Lord Russell was sacrificed; 
and his kinsman Howard, whom we have just had the pleasure of 
dragging before the world from the chimney into which he had slunk, 
was one of the witnesses against the nobleman we have mentioned. 
Russell behaved with great dignity throughout his trial and during its 
fatal result; but the execution was scarcely over, when the town rang 
with his last speech, of which some enterprising Catnach of the period 
had obtained the manuscript. It was actually in print before the fatal 





























































































































































234 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


event took place ; but there is every reason to believe that it was genuine, 
for speculation had not in those days learned to anticipate reports, 
notwithstanding the occurrence of the events described in them having 
been by some accident prevented. 

Individuals of lesser note than Russell, were condemned to share his 
fate, and among them was one Rouse, who was executed at Tyburn for 
having endeavoured to Rouse the populace. A declaration, containing 
a narrative of the Rye-House Plot, was published by the king, who was 
exceedingly fond of performing the office of his own historian. It 
enabled him to “ touch up ” the events in which he himself was concerned, 
and give them a colouring favourable, to himself; but happily for the 
cause of truth, notes were being taken on its behalf, and materials were 
thus collected for such truthful chronicles as those the reader’s eye now 
rests upon. 

The trial and death of Algernon Sidney, the last of the Common¬ 
wealth-men, took place soon after Russell’s execution. Though it is to 
be hoped that few people in these days can be ignorant of the character 
of this remarkable man, yet there may be a section of the British public 
from whom will have burst the cry of “ Sidney ! Who is Sidney ! ” 
directly we mentioned him. Sidney then—we state the fact for the 
benefit of the benighted classes—was son of the Earl of Leicester, and 
had always been a republican, and had been named one of the judges on 
the trial of the king; but he was either too lazy or too loyal to take his 
seat amongst them. He opposed Cromwell’s elevation, from which it 
might have been inferred that he would have had no objection to the 
Restoration ; but he opposed that, and having nothing else to excite his 
resistance, he opposed himself by refusing to take advantage of a general 
bill of indemnity. He had been obliged to remain out of England, 
but finding that he was seriously opposing his own interest by his 
absence from home, he applied for the king’s pardon, which was sent 
him by an early post, and he arrived in England with his protection in 
his pocket. Party spirit was running very high when Sidney returned, 
and he was not the man to do anything with a view to moderation, so that 
he was soon at his old trick of opposing the government. He began 
talking largely about liberty, and he was really going on in a very improper 
way, for he fell into the common error of patriots, namely, that of spout¬ 
ing commonplace claptraps instead of attempting every legal means to 
bring about a reform of the evils that may be in need of remedy. 

Sidney now became a marked man. whom the royalists were deter¬ 
mined to crush, and a pretext was speedily found for bringing him to 
trial. Several witnesses were brought forward to prove the existence of 
a plot; but what plot and what Sidney had to do with it, or whether he 
was concerned in it at all, did not form any part of the subject of the 
evidence. Having established a plot, the next thing to be done was to 
show that Sidney was at the head of it, and the abject Howard—no 
relation to the philanthropist—made his sixth or seventh appearance as 



CHAP. HI.j 


TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF SIDNEY. 


23 5 


a royalist witness for the purpose specified. According to law, it was 
necessary to have the testimony of a second person; but there were not 
two Howards in the world, and a supplementary scoundrel to swear away 
Sidney’s life was no where to be met with. 

Some papers found in the house of the accused, were examined in 
lieu of a second witness ; and though this was a flagrant evasion of the 
law, the proceeding was pronounced by the infamous Jeffreys to be 
perfectly regular. He asserted that written documents were better than 
living witnesses, for the former could not give an evasive reply; but the 
judicial villain forgot that the papers, unless the writing happened to be 
crossed, would not admit * of the test of cross-examination like other 
witnesses. Sidney pleaded that his hand-writing had not been proved ; 
and that even supposing him to be the author of the documents, he 
might have been “ only in funbut this was a frivolous excuse, for it 
is clear that if “ only in fun,” were a good plea, there would be great 
difficulty in getting over it. A verdict of “ Guilty ” was returned by a 
jury so discreditably packed, that the box in which they sat, should 
have been called a packing-case. 

Judge Jeffreys “came out” exceedingly on the occasion of Sidney’s sen¬ 
tence being passed, and insisted on proceeding to the last extremity, 
notwithstanding a mass of irregularities having been pointed out to him. 
Jeffreys would listen to nothing in the prisoner’s favour; and upon one 
Mr. Bampfield, a barrister, venturing an opinion as amicus ciirice, that 
unhappy junior was smashed, snubbed, and silenced by the judge, who 
recommended the learned gentleman to confine himself to those points of 
practice upon which his opinion was required. The scene between Sidney 
and Judge Jeffreys degenerated into a mere personal squabble before the 
unhappy affair was concluded, and it ended in Jeffreys telling Sidney to 
keep cool, while the judge himself was boiling over with rage, and the 
prisoner tauntingly requested his “ lordship ” to feel his—the prisoner's 
—pulse, which the latter declared was more than usually temperate. 
Sidney followed the practice, prevalent at the time, of placing a paper 
in the hands of the sheriff by way of legacy on the scaffold; but we 
have been unable to account for the strange partiality felt by persons at 
the point of death for the individual principally concerned in their 
execution. 

Hampden was selected as the next victim to the political persecution 
so much in vogue during Charles’s reign, but it was thought more 
profitable to fine this gentleman than to execute him, and he was 
adjudged to pay a penalty of £40,000, which added a large sum to the 
royal treasury, besides saving the executioner's fee and the cost of a 
scaffold. Judge Jeffreys, though baulked in this instance of an oppor¬ 
tunity for gratifying his sanguinary propensities, took his revenge upon 
some inferior prisoners, for it was his practice when one eluded the 
gallows by any chance, to hang two, as a poor compensation for the 
disappointment he had suffered. Professor Holloway, who had been 
concerned in the Rye-House Plot, was accordingly condemned to death, 


23o COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK VII 

with Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had had a small and very unprofitable 
share in the same conspiracy. 



Judge Jeffreys 


Judge Jeffreys, who figured in these sanguinary transactions, was one 
of the most extraordinary specimens of ruffianism that the world ever 
produced ; and if history—like Madame Tussaud—were to get up a 
Chamber of Horrors, Judge Jeffreys would certainly take his place in it 
by the side of Danton, Sawney Bean, Marat, Mrs. Brownrigg, and 
Robespierre. Before he went on circuit he used to say he was going to 
give the provinces “ a lick with the rough side of his tongue ”—a vulgar 
threat which he carried out to its fullest extent, for he not only used 
his tongue, but his teeth, in the lickings he administered to the unfor¬ 
tunate prisoners brought before him for trial. He was not much 
interested in dry points of law, and indeed he endeavoured to moisten 
them as much as he could by drinking copiously before he went into 
court, and he sometimes reeled about so unsteadily as he took his place 
on the bench, that a facetious usher of the period declared Jeffreys 
should be called the Master of the Rolls, for he was always rolling about 
from side to side, when he approached the seat of judgment. 

The king endeavoured, by courting personal popularity, to avert from 
himself some of the odium that attached to his creatures and his govern¬ 
ment. Knowing that the suspicion of his entertaining popish predi¬ 
lections was very much about, he married his niece, the Lady Anne, to 
Prince George of Denmark, a Protestant. No consideration would 
induce him, however, to call another Parliament, and though he was 
bothered for money on all sides, without the power of raising a supply, 
he preferred, as he said, “ rubbing on,” to the chance of getting some 
much harder rubs from the legislative body, in the event of one having 




















































CHAP. III.J 


ILLNESS OF CHARLES II. 


237 

been summoned. He greatly preferred doing just as he pleased with 
other people’s money, to the annoyance of getting any of his own upon 
the conditions that a Parliament would certainly have attached to the 
grant of it. His credit being almost unlimited, he never wanted for 
anything that cash could procure ; and he led a much more independent 
life by setting Parliament at defiance, and having nothing to thank it 
for, than he could have done had he called it together, and taken an 
annual supply, the amount of which would have been in some measure 
contingent on his good behaviour. 

Charles had become as absolute as the last case of a Latin noun, but 
he was not happy, and his gaiety beginning to forsake him, the picture 
of the sad dog was gloomily realised. He fell into a succession of fits 
of the Blues, and on Monday, the 2nd of February, 1685, he put his 
hand to his head, turned very pale, and seemed to be in a very shaky 
condition. Dr. King, an eminent physician, with a taste for experi¬ 
mental philosophy, was sent for; but his experiments either failed, or 
were put off too long, for Charles fell on the floor as if dead when the 
Doctor arrived to prescribe for him. Dr. King resolved on bleeding 
the royal patient, who came to as fast as lie had gone off, and in a fit of 
generosity the Council ordered the surgeon £1000, which, in a fit of 
oblivion, was forgotten, and he was never paid anything. Perhaps payment 
may have been disputed, on the ground that the doctor’s treatment had 
not been permanently effective, for a bulletin had scarcely been issued 
declaring the king out of danger, when it was found necessary to issue 
another bulletin declaring him in again. The physicians handed him 
over to the ministers of the church, but Charles would not have 
about him any Protestant divine, and the Duchess of Portsmouth 
then told it as a great secret to the French ambassador, that the king, 
at the bottom of his heart, was a Catholic. This information revealed 
two facts about which there might have been considerable doubt, namely, 
that the king possessed some religion, though it was the one which he 
had been during the whole of his reign persecuting and executing others 
for following; and secondly, that he had a heart sufficiently capacious 
for any moral or virtuous principle to lie at the bottom of. 

The moment the true character of Charles’s faith was known to the 
French ambassador, he used his utmost ingenuity to smuggle a Con¬ 
fessor to the death-bed of the sovereign. The English Bishops, however, 
stuck to the expiring monarch so pertinaciously that no Romish priest 
could approach, until one Huddleston was hunted up, who had formerly 
been a Popish Clergyman, but had so terribly neglected his business, 
that the office of Confessor was quite strange to him. A wig and gown 
were put upon him to disguise him, and he was taken to a Portuguese 
monk to be “ crammed ” for the task he had to perform; and having 
been brought up the back staircase to the royal chamber, he got through 
the duty very respectably. Such was the disreputable imposture that 
was resorted* to for supplying Charles II. with the only religious assist¬ 
ance or consolation that he received before his dissolution. The 

R 


VOL. II 







238 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


Protestant Bishops, who had been all hurried into the next room, did 
not know exactly what to make of it; but there were various whispers 
and shrewd suspicions current among the churchmen and the courtiers. 

Soon after his interview with Huddleston, who was huddled up in a 
cloak to get him out of the palace without being discovered, Charles got 
a little better, and sent for his illegitimate children to give them his 
blessing. A catalogue of these young ladies and gentlemen would 
occupy more space perhaps than they are worth, but it is sufficient 
perhaps to say, that Master Peg and Miss Peg, the king’s son and 
daughter by Mrs. Catharine Peg, were absent from the family circle in 
consequence of their having died in their infancy. Master James Wal¬ 
ters, the eldest of the group of naturals, who had been created Duke of 
Monmouth, was not mentioned by his father in his last illness ; but 
little Charley Lennox, the young duke of Richmond, and his mother, 
the Duchess of Portsmouth— alias , Mademoiselle Querouaille—were 
especially recommended to the Duke of York’s attention. The dying 
reprobate had the good feeling to put in a word for Mrs. Eleanor 
Gwynne, the actress, ancestress of the noble house of St. Alban’s ; but 
as he only said, “ Do not let poor Nelly starve,” it does not seem that 
his views with regard to her were very munificent. The Bishops, 
however, were scandalized selon les regies at even this brief allusion to 
the “ poor player,” who had invariably refused all titles of honour; but 
it is said that their holinesses were not nearly so much shocked at the 
mention of the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Cleveland, who were 
morally not a bit better than Nell Gwynne, though they had electrotyped 
their infamy with rank, which formed in those days, as we are happy 
to say it does not in these, the only real substitute for virtue. 

At six in the morning of the 6th of February, 1685, Charles asked 
what o’clock it was, and requested those about him to open the curtains, 
that he might once more see daylight. Where he was to see it at that 
time of the morning in the darkest period of the year is, like the day¬ 
light itself, under such circumstances, not very visible. His senses, 
which must have been already wandering, were by ten o’clock quite 
gone, and at half-past eleven he expired without a struggle. He was in 
the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of his actual reign, 
though, according to legal documents, he was king for thirty-six years, 
inasmuch as while he was flying about from place to place, and perching 
upon trees to elude discovery, he was supposed, by a loyal fiction, to be 
still sitting on the throne of England. 

A report got abroad that Charles had been poisoned, but although 
this deadly operation had been performed on his mind by the evil and 
corrupt councillors into whose hands he fell after the death of Claren¬ 
don, there is no reason for believing that physical poisoning was the fate 
of this disreputable sovereign. 

The characters of the kings and queens it is our duty to pass in 
review give many a pang to our loyal bosom, and we regret to say that 
our heart has been perforated, nay riddled to an alarming extent, by the 




CHAP. III.J 


CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 


239 


melancholy riddle which the character of Charles presents to us. We 
will begin with him as a companion—not that we should be very anxious 
for his company; but because it was in the capacity of a companion 
that he presented the most amiable aspect. His manners were engaging; 
but as his engagements were scarcely ever kept, the quality in question 
was only calculated to lead to disappointment among those who had 
anything to do with him. His wit, raillery, and satire are said to have 
been first-rate, but we find none of his bon-mots recorded which would have 
been worth more than two-pence a dozen to any regular dealer in jokes, 
though for private distribution they might have been a little more valu¬ 
able, on account of their royal authorship. For his private life he has 
found apologists in preceding historians,* one of whom appears to 
imagine that the disgusting selfishness familiarly termed “jolly-dogism” is 
the highest social virtue of which human nature is capable. Charles was, 
we are told, a good father, but it w ? as to those of whom he ought never 
to have been the father at all; a generous lover to those whom he 
could not make the objects of generosity without the grossest injustice to 
others; and a pleasing companion to those with whom he ought to have 
avoided all companionship. We do not concur in that sort of laxity 
which looks at the domestic ties as so many slip-knots that may hang 
about the wearer as loosely as he may find convenient. 

For his public character, even those who admire him in his private 
relations have not ventured to offer any apology ; and his utter disregard 
of the honour, the religion, the liberty, and the material interests of the 
nation over which he ruled cannot be made the subject of laudation. It 
is suggested that a certain reckless gaiety formed some excuse for his 
defects as a sovereign ; but monarchy in sport, becomes tyranny in 
earnest, when its affairs are conducted by a negligent and heartless 
libertine. His reign was one long hoax as far as religion was concerned, 
for he was a Catholic at heart while pursuing the Papists with the most 
cruel persecution; and though his behaviour towards that class would, 
under any circumstances, have been hateful, it seems doubly detestable 
when we remember that he was himself guilty of holding the opinions 
for which he sent so many to the scaffold. 

There can be no doubt that the fate of his father, and the disgust 
occasioned by the tyranny arising out of the ascendancy of the rabid 
friends of freedom during the Commonwealth, were mainly instrumental 
in obtaining toleration for the vices and oppressive cruelties of Charles II. 
The dissatisfaction caused by the abuse of the royal power in the preced¬ 
ing reign must have burst out with more earnestness had it been kept 
bottled up until the accession of the libertine monarch, whose supposed 
sufferings during exile had attracted towards him a large share of sym¬ 
pathy. Ilad he come to the throne in due course, without the intervention 
of a republic, he would have been swept off by a storm of general indig¬ 
nation ; but the rebound of public feeling in favour of monarchy carried 
him in triumph to the same position that his father had occupied. 

* Ilume calls him “an obliging husband.” 

K 2 








240 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII 


It was remarked of Charles II., that he never said a foolish thing, 
or ever did a wise one; an observation which either he- —or some one 
for him—happily turned to account, by observing that his words were 
his own, while his acts were those of his ministry. He has left nothing 
very valuable to posterity, notwithstanding the alleged wit or wisdom of 
his words, for the only persons who have been able to turn him to profit¬ 
able account, are the dramatists, who have founded a few farces on the 
career of that sad scamp—the Merry Monarch. 



The Merry Monarch. 

























CHAP. IV. ] 


T1UAL OF TITUS OATES. 


241 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

.TAMES THE SECOND. 

' _ hough James had not been 

popular as heir-presumptive to 
the crown, he had no sooner 
got it on his head than loyal 
addresses poured in upon him 
from all sides, for the attach¬ 
ment manifested towards the 
throne on these occasions re¬ 
fers rather to the upholstery 
than to the individual. In his 
capacity of Duke of York, few 
would have exclaimed, “ York, 
you ’re wanted ! ” to fill the 
regal office, but when he had 
once succeeded to it, every one 
was ready to declare that the 
diadem became him as if it had 
been expressly made for him. 

James and his wife were 
greatly puzzled about their 
coronation, for they had an 
objection to the ceremony 
being performed by a Protest¬ 
ant prelate, and unfortunately 
for them “No other was genuine.” By an arrangement with their own 
conscience—a party, by the way, that is sometimes not very obstinate 
in coming to terms—James and his queen not only accepted the crown 
from Protestant hands, but got over an awkward oath or two by means 
of some mental quibbles. As the crown was being put upon his head, it 
tottered and almost fell, which caused a bystander to paraphrase the old 
saying about the slip ’twixt cup and lip, exclaiming— 

“ There’s many a mull 
’Twixt the crown and the skull,” 

an observation that, happily for him who made it, was uttered in a 
tone that was scarcely audible. 

A few days after the coronation, Titus Oates was brought to the bar of 
the Queen’s Bench to be tried over again, though he was already under 
sentence of perpetual imprisonment. James, however, was desirous of 
feeding his revenge on Oates, who had done his worst against the 












































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


24 2 


[book VII. 


Catholics; and Jeffreys, that judicial flail, was set to work to administer 
to Oates a sound thrashing. 

The prisoner assumed a very bold front, and there was a sort of des¬ 
perate restlessness in his manner, which got him the name of Wild 
Oates at the time he was undergoing his trial. He was convicted on 
two indictments, and ordered to pay a thousand marks in respect of each. 
“ But,” said the inhuman Jeffreys, “ we will supply him with marks in 
return, for he shall be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and from 
Newgate to Tyburn.” He was also granted a life-interest, by way of 
annuity, in the pillory, where he was adjudged to stand five days every 
year, as long as he lived, and where voluntary contributions of eggs were 
shelled out in most unwelcome profusion by the populace. 

Parliament met on the 22nd of May, 1685, and James delivered a 
speech from the throne, with notes introduced ad libitum, and a run¬ 
ning accompaniment of threats, remarkable for their extreme impudence. 
This effrontery had its effect, for the Commons, having retired to their 
chamber, voted him an income of a million and a quarter for his life, 
with other contingencies which only required asking for. The Court party 
supported him with zeal, and chiefly recommended him as a king that had 
never broken his word, which appears to have placed him in the light of 
a royal phenomenon. In the midst of all this comfortable and com¬ 
plimentary confidence between the Parliament and James, news arrived 
that Monmouth had landed in the west, with a tremendous standard, 
round which the mob, who will rush anywhere to see a flag fly, were 
rapidly rallying. Monmouth had only got a force of one hundred men 
by way of nucleus to a larger assemblage, or, in other words, as the tag to 
which the string of rag and bobtail would be most likely to attach itself. 
The rebellion raised by Monmouth was very soon put down, and Mon¬ 
mouth himself was found cowering at the bottom of a ditch, in the mud of 
which he must have expired, had it not been for an opponent of his 
dy-nasty, who would not leave him to die in such a very disagreeable 
manner. Poor Monmouth was taken, tried, and condemned ; and, not 
to be out of fashion, he gave money to the headsman—thus paying the 
costs of his own execution even upon the scaffold. 

James proceeded to punish all whom he believed to be the enemies of 
his government, with a sanguinary fury worthy of the revolutionary 
tribunals of France during the ascendancy of Robespierre. Colonel 
Kirk, a soldier who had become savage by service at Tangier, and who, 
having once tasted blood, never knew when he had had enough of it, 
was sent to use the sword of war upon real or suspected rebels, while 
Jeffreys hacked about him right and left with the sword of justice. 
The king himself, with brutal appreciation of the judge’s ferocious 
career, gave it the name of “Jeffrey’s campaign,” and this disgrace to 
the ermine inflamed by drink the natural fierceness of his character. 
He hiccuped out sentences of death with an idiotic stare of counterfeit 
solemnity, and he rolled about the Bench in such a disgraceful manner, 
that a junior, who had nothing to do in court but make bad jokes, 


CHAP. IV.] DOINGS OF JEFFREYS AS CHANCELLOR. 248 

observed that Jeffreys could never have acted as a standing counsel, 
and it was, therefore, lucky for him that he had been raised to a post of 
dignity which he could conveniently lean against. This monster in 
judicial form was elevated to the office of Lord Chancellor, with the 
title of Baron Wem on the death of Lord Keeper North ; when, by way 
of earning his promotion, Jeffreys went hanging away at a much more 
rapid rate than before, and the only misfortune was, that there was 
not sufficient rope for him to hang himself, notwithstanding the 
abundance of that material which was supplied to him. Jeffreys added 
to the trade of a butcher the less sanguinary pursuits of bribery and 
corruption, which enabled him to make a certain sum per head of the 
prisoners, while their heads remained upon their shoulders. He and 
father Petre, the king’s confessor, divided £6000 paid by Hampden, 
who was still in jail, to put aside a capital charge of high treason with 
which he had been threatened ; and poor Prideaux, a barrister who had 
talked himself into the Tower by an unfortunate “gift of the gab,” 
purchased his impunity for £1500, the probable amount of his entire 
life’s professional earnings. 

The Marquess of Halifax had sat at the council board for some time 
with Rochester, who, though swearing from morning till night, and 
drunk from night till morning, was the recognised head of the high- 
church party, and the great hope of the religious section of the com¬ 
munity. Halifax, not exactly liking the projects of his royal master, and 
the character of his colleague, turned a little refractory ; and being 
dismissed from office, became in the natural order of things the leader 
of the opposition. His hostility told even upon the haughty Jeffreys, 
who was made to perform the unpleasant operation'of biting the dust— 
a fate to which those who are always opening their mouths and showing 
their teeth are necessarily reduced when they are brought to a prostrate 
condition. James was so much disgusted and disappointed that he 
dissolved the Parliament, to avoid further discussion, thus as it were 
turning off the gas by which a light was being thrown upon his own 
real views and character. 

The undisguised object of James was to Catholicise the whole country 
by dismissing from office all who had the slightest shade of Pro¬ 
testantism in their principles; and even Rochester, the head of the 
high church party, having got argumentative and disputatious over his 
drink, was turned out of the Council. This ejectment was judicious in 
the main, though the immediate cause for it scarcely warranted the act; 
but the Council Room had been little better than a public-house 
parlour during the whole time that Rochester had been suffered to sit 
in it. James next drew up a declaration of liberty of conscience, to be 
read in all the churches, but the bishops, with very great spirit, resisted 
the introduction of the obnoxious document. They were consequently 
summoned on a charge of high misdemeanor before the King’s Bench, 
when Jeffreys tried to cajole them with such amiable observations as 
“ Now then, what’s this little affair? There s some mistake, is there 


244 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII 


not? but we shall soon put it all to rights, I dare say;”—a style of 
conciliation to which the bishops did not take as kindly as the king and 
his creatures desired. The people were greatly in favour of the prelates, 
who were cheered on their way to their trial by an enthusiastic mob of 
juveniles; for it is worthy of remark, that the boys are ever in advance 
of their age, as the pioneers of popular opinion. 

The jury, having in their own hearts an echo to the general voice, 
acquitted the defendants, after an adjournment and a locking up for a 
night, which had been rendered necessary by the obstinacy of a Mr. 
Arnold, the king’s brewer, who supplied the palace with beer, and 
insisted upon putting what he called “ nice pints,” for the purpose of 
raising difficulties in the minds of his colleagues. A verdict of “ Not 
Guilty ” was however eventually returned, and a round of applause 
having started in the Court itself, passed from group to group till it got 
to Temple Bar, where the porters taking it up with terrific force, gave 
it a lift down Fleet Street, and it was thence forwarded by easy stages 
as far as the Tower. London was illuminated in honour of the occasion, 
and the Pope having been hanged in effigy, some wag put “ a light in 
his laughing eye,” which caused it to twinkle for a few moments, until, 
like the fire of genius, it consumed the frame in which it was deposited. 

On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen, Mary d’Este, the second wife 
of James, was declared to have been delivered of a “ fine bouncing boy,” 
but the people, who would have no Papist heir to the throne, declared 
the alleged “ bouncing boy ” to be a bounce altogether. There was not 
over nicety in the mode chosen to account for the presence of the child, 
by those who would not believe that it was the son of the king and 
queen; but the most popular story was, that the little fellow had been 
brought in a warming-pan into the royal bedchamber. This was hauling 
the young Pretender rather prematurely over the coals, but as the 
contents of the warming-pan were never regularly sifted, we cannot 
vouch for the truth or falsehood of the account that has been handed 
down to us. The event, whether real or fictitious, was celebrated by a 
brilliant display of fireworks, which proved a sad failure ; for the lightning, 
which was exceedingly vivid, completely took the shine out of the feu 
d'artifice , and thoroughly “ paled,” as if with a pail of cold water, “ their 
ineffectual fires.” 

All eyes were now turned upon William, Prince of Orange, who, 
naturally enough, became as proud as a peacock at having so many eyes 
upon him Having received a very pressing invitation from England, 
he determined to come over and question the legitimacy of the alleged 
Prince of Wales—our young friend of the warming-pan. On Friday, 
October 16, 1688, William of Orange set sail, and stood over for the 
English coast; but old Boreas, who stands as sentinel over the British 
Isles, began railing and blustering in such a boisterous manner, that the 
invading fleet was driven out of its course, and the order on board every 
ship was to “ ease her,” “ back her,” or “ turn her astarn,” to prevent 
a collision that might have proved disagreeable. The fleet, however, 


CJIAP. IV.] THE ARMY DESERTS THE ROYAL CAUSE. 245 

\ 

sailed definitively on the 1st of November, and arriving at Torbay on 
tlie 4th, be landed there amid the usual kissing of bands, grasping of 
legs, banging on at the coat tails, and tugging affectionately at the cloak 
skirts, which form the ordinary demonstrations of affectionate loyalty 
towards any new object, who can bid tolerably high for it. Nevertheless, 
the people did not come out half so strongly as he could have desired; 
and, indeed, he complained that the warmth of his first reception had 
soon cooled down to mere politeness with the chill off. It is said that 
he even threatened to return, hut recollecting that such quick returns 
would be productive of no profit, he abandoned the notion of going 
home, and said to himself, very sensibly, “ Well, well! now I am here, 
I suppose I must make the best of it.” 

James was completely taken aback at the news of what had occurred, 
and tried to get up a little bit of popularity by turning quack doctor and 
running about in all directions to touch people for the king’s evil. It 
was, however, a mere piece of claptrap, or, as some term it, touch and 
go ; for directly the people had been touched they were found to go 
without evincing the smallest symptoms of attachment to their doctor 
and master. James had certainly got a considerable number of soldiers; 
but he could not rely upon them for three reasons—first, because they 
were not to be trusted ; secondly, because they were not to be depended * 
upon ; and thirdly, because there was no reliance to be placed upon 
them. Any one of these causes would of itself have been sufficient; 
but James was almost as difficult of conviction as the celebrated angler, 
who only abandoned his fishing expedition upon finding that there were, 
in the first place, no fish; secondly, that he had no fishing-rod; and 
thirdly, that if there were any fish, he did not think they would allow 
him to catch them. 

The soldiers soon began to justify James’s doubt of their fidelity, by 
rapidly deserting him. Lord Colchester went first, and the example was 
so catching that it ran through all the forces, and when James made up 
his mind to join the army, he made the mortifying discovery that there 
was nothing to join, for all the officers were unattached to the cause of 
the sovereign. The bishops advised him to call a Parliament, and the 
little Prince of Wales was packed off in a parcel, with “ This side up¬ 
wards ” legibly inscribed on the crown of his hat, to Portsmouth. In 
the midst of his other distresses, the king's nose began to bleed, in con 
sequence, it was said, of the repeated blows he had endured from the 
soldiery, who had flown in his face with the utmost disloyalty. He con¬ 
sequently made up his mind and his portmanteau to retreat, when, in 
stopping at Andover, he asked his son-in-law, Prince George of Den 
mark, and the young Duke of Ormond, to sup with him. They accepted 
the invitation ; but in the morning they were both missing, having run 
off—without paying their bills—to join the Prince of Orange, whom 
they found in quarters. On arriving at Whitehall, James found that 
even his daughter Anne had followed her husband’s example and joined 
the enemy. 

v 


246 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


As every one else was flying, James began to think that it was high 
time for himself to run for it. The little Prince of Wales, who had 
been forwarded to Portsmouth, was actually declined as a parcel on 
which the carriage had not been paid, and was sent back like a returned 
letter to London. The queen, putting the little fellow under her arm, 
walked over Westminster Bridge, popped into the Gravesend coach, and 
hailed a yacht, which took her and her infant to Calais. James, only 
waiting to pocket the great seal, ran after his wife ; but finding the 
bauble heavyand that the great seal, by making him look conspicuous, 
would perhaps seal his doom, he pitched it into the river. On reaching 
Lambeth they exclaimed “ Efoy, a hoy! ” and a hoy was provided in 
which he took his passage; but the vessel putting in at the Isle of 
Sheppy for ballast, the people attacked him with great rudeness, and 
called him, without knowing who he was, a “hatchet-faced Jesuit.” 
This proves he must have had a very sharp expression, for with a face 
like a hatchet, he would no doubt have had teeth like a saw, and presented 
altogether a rather formidable aspect. To save himself from outrage he 
announced himself as the king, but this disclosure had only the effect of 
making them rob as well as insult him, for knowing he had money of his 
own, they were determined to get it out of him. He was seized by a mob 
of fish-women, sailors, and smugglers, who turned his pockets inside out, 
and bullied him so severely that he howled out piteously for mercy, and 
adopted a favourite oath of his brother Charles’s, when a salmon lighting 
rather heavily on his eye, he exclaimed “ Odds fish ! ” with considerable 
earnestness. He at length “put up” at the nearest public house, 
where he wrote a note to Lord Winchilsea. Upon the arrival of this 
nobleman, the king sat down and had a good cry, but Winchilsea saga¬ 
ciously observed to him, “ Come, come ; it’s no use taking on so ; you 
had much better take yourself off as speedily as possible.” 

The moment the flight of James from his palace was known, the city 
was thrown into the utmost excitement, and by way of making each 
other more nervous than need be, the inhabitants set all the bells rincincf 
with incessant vehemence. The people might have knocked each other 
down with feathers, so agitated had they become; and in their frenzy 
they not only began burning all the popish chapels, but looked every¬ 
where for Father Petre, to make the same use of him that his namesake 
saltpetre might have been turned to on such a very explosive occasion. 
Father Petre had taken himself off to France, but the pope’s nuncio, 
who was in general denounced by the mob, disguised himself as a foot¬ 
man, and kept jumping up behind a carriage, to look as if he was in 
service, whenever he observed any one apparently watching him with 
suspicion. Judge Jeffreys having been stupidly intoxicated over some 
sittings in banco at a public house, followed by a trial at bar of some 
cream gin that had been strongly recommended to his lordship for 
mixing, was unable of course to fly—or even to stand—but, disguised 
as a sailor, he was perambulating the streets of Wapping. Having 
been discovered, he was seized by the mob, who, instead of exercising a 


CHAP. IV.] 


JAMES EMBARKS FOR PICARDY. 


247 


summary jurisdiction, and hanging him at once, as they might have 
done had they determined to pay him in his own coin, turned him over to 
the Lord Mayor as a preliminary to a regular trial. 

A provisional government of the bishops and peers was formed in 
London, and a note despatched to the Prince of Orange, saying, “ that 
the first time he came that way, if he would drop in they should be very 
happy to see him.” James showed considerable obstinacy before he 
could be got rid of; and he continued exercising, as long as he could, 
some of the smaller functions of royalty. He came back to London, 
and to the surprise of everybody, sat down to dinner as usual at White¬ 
hall, forgetting, perhaps, that his father had taken a chop there on a 
previous occasion for having given offence to his people. Four 
battalions of the Dutch Guards were marched into Westminster by way 
of hint, which James for some time refused to take, and he had actually 
gone to bed, when Halifax roused him up, by the information that he 
must start off to Ham, as the Prince of Orange was expected at White¬ 
hall the first thing in the morning. James observed, that the place 
suggested to him was very chilly, and as he could not bear cold Ham, 
he had much rather go to Rochester, if it was all the same to Halifax. 
This w r as agreed to on behalf of the Prince of Orange; and James 
taking the Gravesend boat, quitted London with a very few followers. 
There was an explosion of Cockney sentimentality on this occasion; for 
the citizens who had been the first to demand his expulsion, began 
shedding tears in teacupfuls when they witnessed the departure of the 
sovereign. Having remained for the night at Gravesend, he started the 
next morning for Rochester, and after a very brief stay, he went in a 
fishing-smack, smack across the channel to Ambleteuse, a small town in 
Picardy. From thence he hastened to the Court of Louis XIV., where 
James still enjoyed the empty title of king, which was not the only 
empty thing he possessed, for his pockets were in the same condition 
until Louis replenished them. He sometimes compared them to a 
couple of exhausted non-receivers, for these were utterly exhausted, and 
were not in the receipt of anything but what he obtained from his 
brother sovereign’s munificence. Some historians tell us that James 
had made a purse, but if he had, it is doubtful whether he had any 
money remaining to stock it with, after the fishermen, who made all 
fish that came to their net, had encountered him at Torbay, and deprived 
him of all the loose cash he had about him. 

William of Orange could not exactly make up his mind what to do upon 
the flight of James ; but he very wisely declined to follow the advice of 
some injudicious friends, who recommended him to appear in the charac¬ 
ter of William the Conqueror. He sagaciously observed that imitations 
were always bad, evincing an utter absence of any original merit in the 
imitator, and certain in the end to have their hollowness detected. He 
admitted that the idea of entering England as William the Conqueror 
might have been a very good one at first; but that he should very justly 
be denounced as an impudent humbug if he endeavoured to obtain 


248 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII. 


popularity by trading on the reputation of another. Scorning, therefore, 
to be a servile copyist, he determined on striking out a path for himself, 
and tried the “ moderately constitutional dodge,” which succeeded so well 
that he is to this day recognised as the hero of what is termed the 
“ glorious Revolution.” He called together some members of Charles 
II.’s Parliaments, and recommended them, with the assistance of the 
Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen, to consider what had better 
be done under the peculiar circumstances of the nation. There is some¬ 
thing richly ludicrous, according to modern notions, in the idea of con 
suiting a Lord Mayor and fifty Common Councilmen on a great political 
question; for though we would cheerfully be guided by such authorities 
in the choice of a sirloin of beef or the framing of a bill of fare, their 
views on the cooking up of a constitution would not, in these days, be 
gravely listened to. The peers and bishops had already recommended 
the summoning of a convention, and the Lord Mayor having proposed 
that the Commons should say “ ditto to that,” the suggestion was 
forthwith adopted. 

The Convention having met, the first question it proceeded to discuss 
was whether James had not, in leaving the kingdom, run away, in fact, 
from his creditors, for every king owes a debt to his peojfie ; and whether 
the throne, crown, and sceptre, might not be seized for the benefit of those 
to whom he was under liabilities. The Commons soon came to the 
resolution that the throne was vacant, a conclusion which we must not 
examine too strictly; for if the principle involved in it were to be gene¬ 
rally admitted, we should find that a freeholder running away from his 
freehold house to avoid meeting his Christmas bills, would, by that act, 
not only oust himself from his property, but cut off all bis successors 
from their right of inheritance. Upon the broad and vulgar principle 
that the Stuarts were a bad lot, the Convention was justified perhaps 
in changing the succession to the throne ; but, for our own parts, we 
must confess our disinclination to let in such a plea for the wholesale 
setting aside of a reigning family. As the last of the Pretenders is 
happily defunct, we may venture upon taking the line of argument we have 
adopted, without running the risk of a public meeting being called on 
the appearance of this number, to consider the immediate restoration of 
the Stuarts, a measure which our loyalty to the reigning sovereign, who 
fortunately unites in her own person all claims to the crown, would never 
tolerate. Had it been otherwise, we should not have been surprised by 
the announcement of aleague, with the usual staff of a chairman, a boy, a 
brass plate, and a bell, to restore to the house of Stuart the crown of 
England. 

To return, however, to William of Orange, whom we left waiting to 
be asked to walk up the steps of the throne; and we have great pleasure 
in taking him by the hand, for the purpose of giving him a lift to that 
exalted station he was now called to occupy Some were for engaging 
him as regent during the minority of the Prince of Wales ; but William 
flatly refused to become a warming-pan for one whose alleged introduction 


CHAP. IV.] 


CHARACTER OF JAMES II 


249 


into the royal bed-chamber through the medium of a warming-pan, 
rendered the simile at once striking and appropriate. “ All or none ” 
was the motto adopted by William in his negotiations with the Conven¬ 
tion, and it was at length resolved to settle the crown on the joint heads 
of himself and the Princess of Orange, with a stipulation that the Prince 
should hold the reins of government. A declaration of rights was 
drawn up, so that everything was reduced to writing, and put down in 
black and white, for the purpose of avoiding disputes between the king 
and the people. 

James’s reign was now hopelessly at an end, and entirely hy his own 
act; for, after he had absconded, it would have been idle for the nation 
to have been satisfied with writing, “ Gone away ; not known where,” 
over the throne of England. A sketch of the character of this king is 
scarcely required from the English historian, who may fairly say, “ My 
former man, James, quitted my service, and you had better make 
inquiries in his last place, for I have ceased to have anything to do with 
him. I can venture to say he was sober; but I am not quite sure about 
his honesty; for though in looking over the plate-basket where I kept the 
regalia, I found the crown, sceptre, and other articles of that description 
perfectly right, I had missed from time to time a great deal of money, 
which I verily believe the man James had pocketed. I should say that 
the fellow was very weak, and not being strong enough for his place, he 
left his work a great deal to inferior servants, who behaved very shame¬ 
fully. I think the fellow was willing, and it might be said of him, that 
he would if he could, but he couldn’t—a state in which the servant of a 
nation is not likely to give much satisfaction to those who require his 
services.” Such is the character that may be fairly written of James II., 
who, we may as well add, was promoted to a saintdom in France, by 
way of compensation for his forfeiture of the “ right divine to govern 
wrong ” in England 


250 


COMIC IIISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK Vj'i. 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, FINE ARTS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION 

OF THE PEOPLE. 

It is now necessary to sink the historian for a time in the reviewer, 
and to take a retrospect of the literature of the period through which 
our narrative has passed. The republic of politics was not favourable 
to the republic of letters, and the Elizabethan dramatists were followed 
by a few playwrights of a very inferior class. The mantle of Shakspeare, 
or even of Beaumont and Fletcher, who had flourished under the 
monarchy, was caught by no worthy object, and it fell upon Shirley, for 
whom it was evidently a great deal too large. Denham and Waller, 
those two commonplace songsters, set up a faint warbling, and Hobbes 
had sufficient fire to burn with philosophic ardour, though his thoughts 
were fettered by his royalist principles. Hobbes, however, was a fire¬ 
side companion to many, though they dared scarcely hang over Hobbes 
in the broad light of day. 

Milton had written little till he gave to the world—which is true 
enough, for the world can hardly be said to have bought it—his 
“ Paradise Lost,” which he brought out in 1667, and though the sale 
w r as limited, it was sufficiently encouraging to induce him to baffle the 
crowd of imitators by advertising a new poem, to be called “ Paradise 
Regained.” He feared the sort of impertinent opposition which echoes 
every new work, and which, when an original writer takes it into his 
head to bid any one “ Go where the aspens quiver,” “ Meet him in the 
willow-glen,” or commit some other foolery, will reply by expressing 
a desire to come where the aspens are actually quivering, and to be 
punctual at the willow-glen, for which the invitation is forwarded. 
“ Paradise Regained ” had the fate of all merely imitative literature, for 
it never acquired, and will never attain, the reputation its prototype or 
predecessor has enjoyed. 

The Restoration seemed to act as a restorative to Milton’s pow r ers, 
for he published many of his finest things after Charles II. returned to 
the throne. Cowley was one of the earliest writers who took to diluting 
the works of other people in some stuff of his own ; and, taking the 
materials of Donne, he set an example of the modern practice of 
seizing upon another man’s original ideas, for the purpose of beating or 
spinning them out into a shape that may, if possible, prevent the real 
authorship from being recognised. There was, however, a great deal of 
true genius among the literary men of the age, through which our 
narrative has just carried us. Spenser, whose tales were only too short, 
would have been sufficient to redeem the period from the imputation of 
mediocrity. 


CHAP. V.j 


LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, ETC. 


251 


The Stage was, during the reign of Charles II., in a very degraded 
state; but the cry for the restoration of the drama has been kept up so 
long, that we really do not know what there is to restore, if everything 
has been always bad, except the works of two or three writers, whose 
productions are being so constantly performed, that the public cannot 
reasonably complain of not getting enough of them. The “ palmy days 
of dramatic literature ” are, according to the ordinary acceptation of 
those who use the term, any days but the present, and it is not impro¬ 
bable that our own will be looked back upon and lamented as the genuine 
“ palmy days ” by the generation of grumblers who may come after us. 
If everything is objected to in its turn—and such has been the fate of 
every successive crop of writings for the Stage—we of course cannot tell 
with accuracy what it would be considered worth while to restore in the 
judgment of those who are clamorous for the restoration of the drama. 
There is also considerable difference of opinion as to how the restoration 
is to be effected ; and we may perhaps be excused, therefore, for suggesting 
that some good strong salts—attic salts, of course—are likely to prove the 
most effectual restoratives to a drama in a languishing condition. 

There was an immense increase in the family of science at or about the 
period we have been speaking of, and indeed science had so many sons, 
that it would not have been very surprising if the fate of the domestic 
circle of the old lady who lived in a shoe—namely, an abundance of 
broth and a scarcity of bread —had been their inheritance. The illus¬ 
trious Boyle might frequently have been left without a roast by the 
number of competitors who were seeking a living round him through 
the exercise of their talents, and amidst his curious experiments on air, 
that of trying to live upon it might, if successful, have been of the greatest 
use to him. He was an enthusiast in the splendid career he had long and 
perseveringly pursued ; nor is it going beyond the truth to say of him, 
that he combined extatics with hydrostatics, by the eagerness and 
animation with which he threw himself into water, whose properties 
were almost the only property he ever realised. There were several 
other scientific luminaries in this age, and we must not forget Hooke, 
who always had an eye to the capabilities of the microscope, and took 
an enlarged view of everything that fell under his observation. For 
Sydenham, the restorer of true physic, we have not so much veneration ; 
but Newton is a name that we cannot pass over so slightingly. This 
great man, to whom science was the apple of his eye, and to whose eye 
the apple had revealed one of the greatest truths ever discovered, lived 
for some time a most retired life, which he passed in tranquil obscurity. 
Such was his position when the fruits of his contemplation came home 
to him in the shape of a golden pippin, which he revolved in his mind 
as it revolved in the air, and the result was, the great fact by the per¬ 
ception of which his name has been immortalised. Though Newton was 
a pattern of modesty in his intercourse with the external world, he was 
bold enough in his approaches to Dame Nature, and would not allow 
her to hide her face from him, if by any amount of perseverance he 


252 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VII 


could get a peep at it. He even had the audacity to go the length of 
tearing off her veil, for the purpose of revealing her beauties; and 
Nature, instead of becoming indignant at this rough treatment, was 
evidently flattered by his attentions, to which she offered every 
encouragement. 

It is a curious fact, that the Institution of the Royal Society com¬ 
menced under the auspices of a brother-in-law of Cromwell, one Wilkins, 
a clergyman, who, although so nearly allied to the republican leader, 
had no objection to accept facilities from a regal hand for promoting the 
objects of science, in which he felt a zealous interest. This brother-in- 
law of Cromwell was Bishop of Chester under the Restoration, which 
he liked just as well as the Commonwealth, and perhaps better, for his 
mitre was rather safer under a royal rule, than it could have been 
during a republican government. 

Charles II. was without doubt a lover of the sciences to a certain extent, 
but his disgusting depravities left him neither money nor time for the 
advancement of genius and literary merit. His contemporary, Louis 
XIV., was more liberal of his bounty to those whose intellect formed 
their chief claim to consideration; but even this magnificent monarch 
scarcely devoted to literature, science, and art, as much as he often 
lavished on one worthless courtier. It is, however, a matter for humili¬ 
ation and regret that we have not advanced upon the munificence of 
Charles II. and Louis XIV.; for, notwithstanding all the acknowledg¬ 
ment that talent in these days receives by way of personal consideration 
and respect, a few paltry thousands a year form the whole amount that 
the nation will afford to pension its instructors or entertainers, when 
their powers of instruction and entertainment have failed to afford them 
the means of comfortable livelihood. 

Of the condition of the people during the period described in the few 
last chapters, we had rather say very little, as we can say nothing 
complimentary. Hypocrisy, during the Commonwealth, and unbridled 
licentiousness at the Restoration, were the characteristic features of the 
two divisions of a period which cast upon the respectability of the nation 
a blot, that time has only turned to iron-mould. The fame of a nation, 
like a damask table-cloth, wdien once stained, is never thoroughly 
restored ; for, send them both to the w T ash—immersing the former in the 
tears of regret, and the latter in the soap-suds—the stain is still indelibly 
there, beyond the power of pearl-ash or penitence. 


BOOK VIII. 


THE PERIOD FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE ACCESSION OF 

GEORGE THE THIRD. 


CHAPTER THE FIRST. 

WILLIAM AND MARY. 



Great Seal of William and Mary. 


The crown of England stood for almost two months in the same 
position as Mahomet’s tomb, for the diadem no longer rested on the 
head of James, nor had it yet lighted on that of the Prince of Orange. 
On the 13th of February, 1689, both houses waited on the Prince and 
Princess of Orange with a bill and a request that, they would put their 
names to it. This document was a Declaration of Rights, in which it 

VOL. II s 





























































































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII 


*254 


was asserted that “ elections ought to be free,” that “jurors ought to 
be duly empanelled and returned,” besides a number of those “ oughts ” 
which are highly respected at the commencement of a reign, but fre¬ 
quently stand for nothing before the end of it. The Prince of Orange 
was by no means so squeezable as his name would seem to imply, for 
he refused to accept the crown unless he could have the power as well 
as the name of king, and he stipulated that his wife should have no 
share in the government. He probably knew the lady’s temper pretty 
well, and felt that neither the country nor himself would have had much 
peace had she been allowed to interfere, and indeed it was a saying of 
one of the ancients, whose name we have not been able to learn, that 
“ when a woman rules the roast, a quantity of broils may be looked for.” 
He threatened to return to Plolland if Parliament gave his wife any 
share of his authority, and the once popular but now almost obsolete 
menace of “ If you do I’m a Dutchman,” * originated no doubt in the 
intimation of William that he would cut his English connections, and 
return to his Dutch duchy if his views were thw r arted by his adopted 
countrymen. 

A country in want of a king is naturally prone to accept one upon 
almost any terms; and though England might have been very particular 
in ordinary circumstances about its chief magistrate, there was so much 
unpleasantness in being without a person of the sort, that the nation 
was very anxious to suit itself. William’s stipulations were therefore 
listened to, and it was even arranged that Mary, in whose right alone 
he had any claim on the British Crown, should have but a nominal 
share of it. The Commons voted that James had abdicated; or, in other 
words, bolted, and thereby shut himself out; while the Lords resolved 
that the throne was vacant; and thus by two different modes they 
came to the same conclusion, namely, that there was an opening for any 
one to “ step up,” if the terms were agreed upon. After some nego- 
ciation it was arranged that William should take the vacant situation, 
which should be considered to some extent a single-handed place, though 
nominally filled by “ a man and his wife,” it being understood that the 
former should do all the work, and that the latter should make herself 
generally useless. 

It will naturally occur to the curious reader to inquire what has 
become of the fugitive James, and we shall therefore commission our 
research to set out as a policeman in pursuit of him. We first trace 
him to Versailles, where he met with a very friendly reception from 
Louis XIV., who made him as comfortable as circumstances would admit, 
and lent him a lot of French soldiers to play at an invasion with. 

Ireland was then, as it has been always, our weakest point, and it 
was resolved that James should hit us on that unhappy raw, which all 
our attempts to heal have only tended to aggravate. James repaired 
to Brest, where he found himself in the bosom of a ragamuffin crowd of 

* The insertion of this rare old saying is rather intended to display our own reading 
than with any idea of its bciiw absolutely essential to the narrative. 


CHAP. I.] JAMES OBTAINS A VICTORY AT BANTRY BAY. 555 

exiles; and forming the best of these into a sort of army, he landed 
with a force of about 2500, at Ivinsale. Having taken the English by 
surprise, James’s party obtained a bit of a victory at Bantry Bay, for the 
numbers of the former being comparatively few, their Commander, 
Admiral Herbert, thought H would be sheer folly not to sheer off, and 
he made for Scilly, which he acknowledged to a friend was exceedingly 
ridiculous. James made the most of the opportunity, and summoned 
an Irish Parliament, which, with true Irish generosity, began voting 
away money at a tremendous rate before it came in, and had bestowed 
upon James twenty thousand a month out of nothing a year, within the 
few first days of their sitting. 

The Treasury was of course not in a condition to meet the liberal 
orders that were made upon it, and James had no means of replenish¬ 
ing it, except with what he brought over in his pocket from France, 
and this, though it had come some distance, would not go very far, 
when he began to try the experiment. Having a scarcity of gold and 
silver, he determined to try the effect of brass, which he knew to be 
in many cases a perfect substitute for both the precious metals, and he 
ordered that his brazen coinage should pass for a hundred times its 
value, which has furnished a monumentum cere perennius of his brazen 
impudence. His household was poverty-stricken in the extreme, and 
Black Rod had nothing but an old birch as the emblem of his office. The 
Court was, in fact, rendered as bad as the lowest alley by the turmoils 
and turbulence that prevailed in consequence of the shortness of cash, 
and after some little hesitation, James determined to go to Londonderry 
for ammunition to carry on the war; but on his arrival the only powder 



Awkward Mistake. 

s 2 












































































250 comic HISTORY of England. [book viii. 

and shot he received, came to him in the shape of the firing of the 
garrison. Finding the place—or rather the inhabitants—unwilling to 
surrender, James drew off, and arrived in Dublin, where some of the 
famous Dublin stout in the shape of a few stalwart adherents still 
sustained him in his enterprise. 

William had no doubt a very troublesome part to play, for he was 
surrounded by a discontented set, which must always arise upon a change 
of dynasty, when the good things to be given away form a proportion 
of about one-eiglitli per cent.—or half-a-crown in the hundred pounds— 
to the expectations of the would-be recipients. When a plan is fixed 
upon for dividing a thousand pounds into fifty thousand equal shares of 
a hundred thousand pounds each, there will be some probability that 
the promoters of a revolution will, when the revolution is complete, be 
all equally and perfectly satisfied. William was speedily surrounded 
by a number of adherents to his cause, who had stuck to it with the 
leech-like intention of drawing upon it to the fullest possible extent; 
and his hangers-on were consequently more weakening to him than other¬ 
wise. On the 19th of October he opened the second session of his first 
Parliament, and was soon pestered by the pecuniary importunities of the 
Princess Anne of Denmark, who declared that her income was scarcely 
enough to keep her in gloves and Denmark satin slippers; and that she 
must have seventy thousand pounds a-year settled upon her, quite inde¬ 
pendent of her brother-in-law and her sister. A family quarrel ensued 
upon this demand, and Queen Mary insisted that “ Nancy must be mad ” 
to prefer a request so shamefully exorbitant. The matter was eventually 
compromised, by a settlement of fifty thousand a-year on “ Sister Anne,” 
who was completely under the influence of Churchill, now Earl of 
Marlborough. 

In the beginning of 1690, William dissolved the Parliament; and 
a new one met on the 20th of March; when the King announced his 
intention of going to Ireland, and intimated his necessity for cash to enable 
him to undertake the journey. He requested the assistance of the Com¬ 
mons in settling the amount of his revenue, upon which he proposed to 
borrow a considerable sum, thus acting on the dangerous and unprofit¬ 
able system of drawing a salary in advance, and spending to-day what 
will not come to-morrow. He intended, in fact, to eat his pudding 
first, and to have it afterwards, or rather to eat his own, and then come 
down upon that of other people to supply the deficiency. The Commons, 
instead of checking this improvidence, granted him two millions and two 
hundred thousand pounds, which was presented to William in the shape 
of an elegant extract from the pockets of his people. Money was not 
all that the new King required, for he was anxious to cement his 
power, and like all those who feel the doubtful character of their 
; laims, was continually insisting on their being formally recognised. 
Bills were passed, though not without some difficulty, abjuring James 
and his title to the Crown; but some nobles objected to take the oaths, 
and Lord Wharton, who was a very old man, declared he was unwilling 


CHAP. L.] lvlMJ WILLIAM'S ARRIVAL IN IRELAND. ^57 

to go swearing on to the end of liis days, that “ he had taken so many 
affidavits, he scarcely knew one from the other, and he must beg to be 
excused from any more oath-taking during the brief remainder of his 
existence.” 

The Parliament having served its purpose, in a pecuniary point of 
view, was prorogued rather early, and William started for Ireland. 
Previous to the king’s departure, the queen very reasonably suggested 
that as he could not take the royal authority away with him, it would be a 
great deal like the dog in the manger, if he refused to let her have the 
enjoyment of the sovereign power during his brief absence. With some 
reluctance he consented to the arrangement, observing coarsely, that he 
knew she would make a mess of it, but as he should not be gone very 
long, it did not much signify. With this surly concession, having agreed 
to a temporary transfer of the sceptre into her grasp, he quitted her, 
with the discouraging and discourteous words, “ There, take it! and let 
all the world see how right I was in preventing you from having a hand 
in the use of it.” 

On his arrival at Belfast he began to look about him for James, whose 
army was at length pounced upon on the banks of the Boyne, and a 
battle became unavoidable. William was looking about him, when the 
enemy loading two immense field-pieces, aimed them both at him; but, 
as between two stools, one often goes to the ground; so, between two 
cannon balls, one may occasionally come off without injury. William, 
when he saw the balls bouncing by him, may have thought that he was 
lucky in escaping a ball'd head, but he soon received a real wound on the 
shoulder, which positively tore his coat, and grazed the skin, to the 
utter horror of Lord Coningsby, who stuffed his pocket-handkerchief 
into the sleeve, to staunch the blood, that might have been, but, fortu¬ 
nately, was not, flowing, William was more frightened than hurt, and 
his officers were more frightened than William, while the enemy were 
more frightened than either, and allayed their trepidation by giving out 
that William was certainly dead, which we need not say was a mere 
penny-a-line report, without the smallest foundation. A poultice soon 
set his shoulder to rights, and at all events enabled him to put it to the 
wheel, which he did, by calling a meeting of the officers at nine in the 
evening. He told them he should cross the river the next day, and he 
gave orders about their dress, observing to them playfully, that as they 
would have to pass through the tide, they had better make themselves 
as tidy as possible. Hearing that the enemy wore cockades, made of 
white paper, he remarked that he would not have his men in such 
foolscaps, but that he desired to see them all with green boughs in their 
hats ; and in this very guyish guise the soldiers of William met the 
adherents of James in combat. 

The gallant Duke of Schomberg, who was extremely touchy, had 
been somehow or other offended at the Council of War, and had retired 
m a huff to his tent, exclaiming pettishly “ Settle it yourselves how you 
like, for it seems I ’in nobody.” In vain did some of his comrades call 


5258 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII. 


after him, “ Schomberg, Schomberg ! Come back, come buckfor the 
general withdrew within his quarters, and letting down his camp-cur¬ 
tains, sat smoking his pipe with inter]ectional mutterings to himself on 
that fruitful topic to a gentleman in the sulks—“ The obstinacy of some 
people.” The order of battle being formed, a copy of it was sent to 
him, when, snatching it from the messenger with a loud “Urnph !” he 
declared that he had scarcely made up his mind whether he should 
obey or light his pipe with the document. Having looked at it, 
however, the old soldier gave a whistle of satisfaction as if in ardent 
anticipation of the work before him; and putting on his armour as 
coolly as if he had been dressing for dinner, he made his way to the 
spot appointed for the coming contest. His reception by his sovereign 
and his fellow-soldiers was cheerful if not cordial; but it was evident by 
the twinkle of the veteran’s eye, that Schomberg was “ himself again ” 
when he stood in the presence of an enemy. 

The contending forces having a river between them, found their 
ardour a great deal damped, for it is not easy to be valorous with the 
water up to one’s waist, and with every desire on both sides to make a 
splash, the soldiers could only dabble in hostilities without plunging 
deeply into them. William put his nag boldly'' across the stream, but 
the English had to deplore the loss of the gallant old Duke of Schomberg, 
who, there is too much reason to believe, was killed in mistake by one of 
his own men, though, we must confess, we always look with very great 
suspicion on these so-called accidents. James had taken his station at a 
most respectable distance from danger during the whole of the affray, 
and he no sooner saw that he had lost the day than he determined not 
to lose a minute in making his escape from England. He gallopped 
on horseback to Dublin, hastened to Waterford, and embarked for France 
with a wretched retinue. William returned to England, and sent the 
Duke of Marlborough to Ireland, who reduced several places, and by 
putting the screw upon Cork, made it pull out very handsomely. 

The bishops now began to feel very uncomfortable about their alle¬ 
giance, and to doubt the validity of its transfer from James to William, 
though the truth seems to be that they had not found the transfer fee 
so large as the} r had expected. Several were deprived of their temporal¬ 
ities — the surest way of bringing them to their senses; but there 
were numerous instances of disinterestedness, in which a blindness to the 
advantages of the see was honourably conspicuous. William troubled 
himself comparatively little about what was going on at home, but was 
far more anxious to carry on with success the league against France ; 
and to further this object he repaired to the continent, where a warfare 
of a rather paltry character was persisted in. The hostilities, though of 
a contemptible kind, were sufficiently costly to render it necessary for 
William to return in the course of a few months, and ask for more 
money from the English Parliament. Large grants were made, but not 
without a great deal of grumbling, for John Bull always pays, though he 
parts with his money very reluctantly, and sometimes takes out half its 



































































































































































CHAP. I.] 


DEATH OF QUEEN MARY. 


259 


value in surly remonstrances against being compelled to put his hand 
into his pocket. The general discontent was considerably aggravated by 
a necessity for the revival of the odious poll-tax, which was a regular rap 
on the head to all except paupers, children, and servants ; for with these 
exceptions everybody—or rather every head—was charged so much a 
quarter for the privilege of remaining on its owner's shoulders. 

William continued riding backwards and forwards between England 
and Holland, but he paid the former the compliment of making it his 
purse on every occasion. His Majesty was constantly taking abroad 
with him both money and men, the former being invariably spent and 
the latter severely wounded, before the king came home again. Occa¬ 
sionally some impression was made on a French fort, but the damage 
done to the enemy cost more than it was worth to the English, whose 
patience and pockets continued to be taxed for the continental freaks 
of the foreign king they had permitted to rule over them. There were 
some able leaders on the side of the British, and among the most con¬ 
spicuous may be cited Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who threw fresh'coals on to 
the fire of enthusiasm that occasionally burned up among the English. 

It would be wearisome to make a list of the various journies of 
William to the Continent and back; nor, indeed, would the document 
amount to anything more interesting than a time-table, were we to take 
the trouble of preparing it His people might with reason have com¬ 
plained that they never saw anything of him, unless he wanted some¬ 
thing from them, and at length on the 12th of November, 1G94, when 
William condescended to meet his parliament and request the favour of 
five millions to “ carry on the warthe opposition led by Mr. Harley, 
the statesman,—not the low comedian—forced upon his Majesty’s 
acceptance a bill for the summoning of triennial parliaments. 

The assent he gave to this unpalatable measure, has been attributed to 
the anxiety he felt on account of the dangerous illness of his wife, which 
may very naturally have incapacitated him for any serious resistance to 
a demand which Parliament urged with wonderful unanimity and 
energy. Poor Mary was seized with an attack of the small-pox, and it 
is a curious mark of the unfeeling character of the punsters of that 
happily remote age, that her malady was made the subject of a pun, 
which as it was new at the period of which we are writing, we may be 
allowed for the three thousand and eighty-fourth time to chronicle. 

When it was known that her Majesty had caught the small-pox, or 
rather that the small-pox had caught her Majesty, it was remarked 
with a savageness that loses none of its ferocity from the fact of its being 
a bitter truth, that she was “ very much to be pitted.” Whether the 
queen ever heard this unfeeling and poverty-stricken joke, the chroni¬ 
clers do not relate, and we cannot answer with certainty for its having- 
been the death of her; but, as she actually died, the supposition we 
have suggested is exceedingly feasible. She expired on the 28th of 
December, 1694, in the thirty-third year of her age, to the great grief 
of her husband, and the regret of the nation in general; for though she 


260 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[COOK VIII. 


was not particularly beloved either by one or the other during her life, 
there was a decent show of sorrow on the part of both, at losing her. 
William no doubt felt the bereavement in more ways than one, for he 
had a servant the less to wait upon him, a dependant the less to bully, 
and a subject the less to domineer over. He lamented her less as a 
partner and friend than he missed her as a companion and housekeeper. 
She was certainly a devoted wife, but the devotion of a woman to her 
husband’s interests is, after all, only a second selfishness, which, when 
viewed in a proper light, is far more prudent than respectable. Her 
inveterate dislike of her sister, with whom she refused to be reconciled 
even on her death-bed, convinces us that it was not altogether a warmth 
of heart that bound her to her husband ; and we therefore set her down 
as a cold unfeeling person who could sacrifice all other ties for the 
sake of one which she believed to be of the most importance to her 
interests. 

We should not, however, be doing justice to the character of Mary 
if we were to omit to state that she was exceedingly skilful in the use 
of the needle, and by working curious devices on chairs or carpets, she 
in one way at least set a pattern to the female portion of the community. 


CHAP. 11.] 


WILLIAM THE THIRD. 


261 


CHAPTER THE SECOND. 

WILLTAM THE THIRD. 


illiam was now en gctrqu v 
upon the throne of Eng¬ 
land ; but, to use the 
words of a quaint com¬ 
mentator, “ he missed his 
missus” very grievously. 
When spoken to on busi¬ 
ness, lie for several weeks 
returned no other answer 
than an intimation that 
business might experience 
that fate which attends a 
dramatic production when 
an audience will not listen 
to a word of it. The 
Princess Anne, his sister- 
in-law, sought a recon¬ 
ciliation through Somers, 
the lord-keeper, whose 
reception was not by any 
means as mild as a sum¬ 
mer’s day, and who con 
gratulated himself on 
having the royal conscience rather than the royal temper in his keeping. 
The keeper, however, was determined to keep it up, and so importuned 
William to be reconciled to Anne, that his Majesty ultimately roared out 
“ Do as you like, but don’t bother me, for I’m not fit for business, nor 
indeed for anything.” Somers arranged an interview between Sister 
Anne and the King, ■who gave her St. James’s Palace as a residence, 
and a quantity of the jewels, which the late Queen, whom he called his 
“duck of diamonds,” had left behind her. The Marlboroughs, who 
had gone quite out of favour with the King, but were the right and left 
hand of Anne, expected to have a share of the reconciliation, and an 
interest in its proceeds. 

Early in 1695, a glut of unpaid washing-bills which were floating 
about the neighbourhood of all the barracks, threw a doubt on the 
honesty, or at all events on the prudence, of the soldiery; and it was 
determined by the government that an inquiry should be made into 
the causes of this paltry irregularity. The disgraceful discovery was 




















































COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


262 


[book VIII. 


instantly arrived at, that the soldiers could not pay their scores because 
the gallant fellows had not received their salaries. 

Corruption and bribery of the lowest kind in the highest quarters 
were soon brought to light, and it was proved that the secretary of the 
treasury had taken a large per centage on the money he had to pay, as 
a sort of bonus for giving himself the trouble to hand it over. Sir John 
Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, turned out a shocking 
old rogue, and was found to have been in the habit of receiving bribes 
for putting questions from the chair, or for smuggling measures through 
their various stages. He had, in fact, undertaken to get bills done for 
any one who brought him a tempting douceur , and a sum of a thousand 
guineas was distinctly traced to the pocket of the venerable knave from 
the promoters of the Orphans’ Bill. He was punished by being com¬ 
pelled to put from the chair of the House the resolution that he, Sir 
John Trevor, was unworthy of sitting in the House, and deserved to be 
kicked out of it. The “ Ayes ” decidedly had it, and Sir John Trevor 
■would have had it too, if he had not instantly withdrawn, to avoid the 
unpleasantness of forcible ejection. Mr. Hungerford, the chairman of 
the committee on the same bill, was also accused, when yielding to a loud 
cry of “ Turn him out,” mingled with occasional mutterings of “ Throw 
him over,” the dis-honourable member sneaked away from the senate. 
A further series of corruptions would certainly have been detected had 
not William determined to avoid further scandal, or at all events further 
exposure, by dissolving the Parliament. 

> James was constantly urging his friend Louis to invade England, and 
he was at length persuaded to collect a fleet and army on the coast, 
while James himself sent over Sir George Barclay and the Duke of 
Berwick to attempt an insurrection. The idea of a couple of adven¬ 
turers coming over to upset the Government was of itself absurd, and 
the affair was rendered more preposterous by Barclay having taken a 
lodging in Hatton Garden, where a garret formed his place of business 
for conducting the affairs of the conspiracy. A simple notification to 
“ ring the top bell,” was all that pointed out this nest of treason to 
those who took an interest in its progress. Even the modern acces¬ 
saries of a boy and a board-room, with a provisional committee, a dozen 
chairs, and a dining-table, were wanting to this desperate scheme, and 
indeed, while Barclay was away in order to get his meals—for there was 
no cooking on the premises—a recommendation to put letters through 
the door, and leave messages or parcels with the porter at the lodge, 
formed the entire instructions upon which the subordinate conspirators 
had to act when they chanced, in the absence of their chief, to call at the 
chambers. 

Such were the contemptible arrangements of this project for turning 
the throne upside down, and burying, or at all events, bonnetting, 
William in the ruins of the outraged upholstery. We cannot be 
surprised that its progress was not by any means encouraging, but 
Barclay had heard of a plot to assassinate the king, in which one Sir 


CHAP. II.] 


CONSPIRACY TO ASSASSINATE KING WILLIAM 


263 


William Perkins was concerned, and thus the since celebrated firm 
of Barclay and Perkins may be considered to have originated in a 
partnership project for brewing the storm of revolution. Barclay 
thought well of the scheme, and was introduced to one Porter; but 
in those days Barclay and Perkins turned up their noses at Porter, 
“who was a drunkard and a blab,” and they therefore were unwilling to 
put any faith in him. Barclay, however, resolved to persevere in his 
regicide scheme, and applied to one Captain Fisher, who lived in King 
Street, Westminster, and was understood to be open to an offer as 
decidedly as if there were written over his door, “Murders carefully 
performed. Assassins’ work in general.” 

The proposal of Barclay, whatever it may have been, was not suffi¬ 
ciently liberal ; for Fisher would only undertake to kill one of the royal 
coach-horses between Hyde Park and St. James’s, but he declined any 
higher responsibility at the price that was offered. Barclay called 



Captain Fisher doesn’t think he can do it at the price. 

Fisher a fool, and they never came to terms ; but the former resolved to 
make the attempt on William’s life, and the romantic Green of Turn 
ham, over which the king was about to pass, on a day appointed, was 
selected as the scene of the treasonable experiment. The party of 
assassins had swelled to thirty-five, who planted themselves in ambush 
behind some bushes, when news was brought that the king had 



















































































































264 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK VIII. 


changed his mind, and would not come to Turnham Green; “Which,” 
says Burnet, “ was enough to turn ’em pale with anger and disappoint¬ 
ment.” There being some fear that the plot would be discovered, 
Barclay sneaked off to France, abandoning his fellow-conspirators to 
their fate, and believing that his old companion Perkins would be 
nicely left in the lurch ; but by a strange coincidence, that personage bad 
entertained a similar notion with regard to his associate, and had got 
away first, so that the recreant couple had been equally deep in their 
cowardice and duplicity. 

It appeared that Fisher, who had volunteered the horrible office of 
knacker upon the coach-horse of the king, disclosed to Lord Portland 
the particulars of the plot, and the result was that several more of the 
traitors, finding confession the order of the day, went forward to tell not 
only all they knew, but a great deal more, that they had invented for 
the sake of having something to communicate. This glut of confidential 
intelligence was so embarrassing, that the government did not know 
what to believe or what to doubt; but nevertheless a proclamation was 
issued, offering a thousand pounds and a pardon to any gentleman 
involved in the scheme, who would be fool enough to criminate himself, 
and villain enough to betray his accomplices. There were, of course, 
several candidates for the cash, and disclosures at a thousand pounds 
each poured in at such a rapid rate, that it was difficult to meet the 
demands made on the treasury, on account of the news for which the 
Government had advertised. To make a long story short, several were 
tried, found guilty, and executed, for having shared in the treasonable 
design against William, and among them was one Keys, a trumpeter, 
who was a mere instrument—like his own trumpet—in the hands of any 
one by whom he could be played upon. 

William’s popularity increased, on account of the plots that had been 
put into operation against him ; for it is a beautiful trait in the English 
character, that the people will become suddenly attracted towards any 
one who seems to be an object of dislike to others. Unfortunately, how¬ 
ever, this generosity is somewhat inconsistent in its nature, for it is 
usually accompanied by an excess of illiberality in an opposite direction, 
and if a man is a martyr to a spirit of hostility, the sympathy evinced 
for him by the public is joined with a savage desire to make martyrs ot 
his enemies. Upon this principle, poor Sir John Fenwick was pounced 
upon for having compassed or imagined the death of the king, and 
though there is every reason to believe that such an idea was quite out 
of the compass of his wildest imagination, he was brought to the 
scaffold. 

It is doubtful, notwithstanding the fuss we now make—and indeed 
have been making ever since the event—about the glorious Revolution 
of 1688, whether we really had anything like full value for the trouble 
it occasioned us. However numerous the blessings we have since 
derived from it, we must contend that it did not pay in the first instance ; 
for as long as England derived no other advantage than having William 


CHAP. II.] DEATH OF JAMES THE SECOND. 265 

for its king, the good achieved by the Revolution of 1608 must be con¬ 
sidered rather more than dubious. He spent his own time and his new 
country's money in sustaining his own title against the attacks made 
upon it by foreign powers, whose interest in supporting the doctrine of 
the “ right divine of kings to govern wrong,” kept them constantly in a 
state of active sympathy with James, whose misconduct had caused his 
forfeiture of the crown, which would otherwise have been legitimately his 
beyond the power of any one on earth to take it away from him. Wil¬ 
liam was consequently at perpetual warfare with some of the continen¬ 
tal states ; and it was only when he got into discredit with his subjects 
that he seemed to rise in favour with some of the absolute monarclis, 
who then, for the first time, appeared disposed to bear with him. 
Louis of France listened to the terms of an arrangement; but he never 
intended to keep faith with William, and was, in fact, intriguing with 
Spain to defeat the very project he pretended to be willing to carry out 
with the duped majesty of England. It was evident that the British 
public did not look with favour upon the individual that had been 
chosen to enact the part of king; and though, like the frogs in the 
fable, the people had rejoiced in being relieved from the devouring 
stork of absolutism embodied in the Stuarts, the Dutch log of which 
William formed the type was quite as distasteful to the nation in 
general. 

It would be most unprofitable to unravel the tangled thread of 
events that made up the complicated but most uninteresting annals of 
this worrying reign, which was distinguished by the multiplicity and the 
pettiness of the disputes between the prince and a portion of his people. 
The loggishness of the sovereign seemed to affect the whole nation with 
the loggerheads ; and not only were parties arrayed against each other, 
but on some occasions the Lords and the Commons came into very 
serious collision. The disputes in which William was involved with 
foreign governments were exceedingly costly to his own country, but he 
finally, on the 7th of September, 1701, after having been a party to 
several treaties that had been either violated or “gone off,” entered 
into a “ second grand alliance ” at the Hague, with various powers. By 
this arrangement all the parties were bound to provide men and money, 
which their people of course had to pay; and the emperor, who had 
made himself liable to furnish a contingency, was so excessively hard up, 
that he was compelled to borrow the money upon his quicksilver-mines; 
but no silver, however quick, could keep pace with the rapidity with 
which the money was called for and got rid of. 

We will now return for a few minutes to James II., who was in a 
very bad way at St. Germains, and was understood to have been dying 
all the summer. At length, on Friday, the 2nd of September, he was 
taken very bad indeed with a fainting fit, but got better, until another 
and another still succeeded ; and the last fit was stronger than the first. 
On Tuesday, the 13th, Louis came to his bedside to say “How d’ye 
do?” but poor James was unable to answer the polite and obliging 


200 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII. 


inquiry, for he was almost without consciousness. Louis kindly endea¬ 
voured to comfort his last moments by promising to protect his family, 
and treat the nominal Prince of Wales as actual king of England, 
but this recognition was not likely to do much good either to the dead or 
the living, as the only parties who were capable of giving it effect, 
namely, the English people, would have nothing whatever to do with it. 
Poor James, who was dosed with a great deal of medicine, and swallowed 
no end of James’s powders, was now beyond the aid of medical skill, 
and he died on the 16th of September, 1701, at the age of sixty-seven. 
An attempt was made to pitchfork this very indifferent sovereign into 
the Roman Calendar as a first-rate saint; but there has never been 
any disposition among the English to award him the honours of 
martyrdom. 

William was by no means the thing in his own health, when the news 
of the death of James was brought to him. A report was indeed spread 
that, like a bill at thirty days, he had only a month to run; but this 
rumour was circulated by the friends of Louis XIY., who fancied that 
if William was once out of the way, the grand monarque might be as 
potent in Europe as the bull of fabled lore was at his ease in the 
China shop. William had been in Holland, where he was really 
dangerously ill; but he contrived to get back to England, where he 
dissolved Parliament in November, 1701, and called a new one together, 
which met on the 31st of December, to see the old year out and the 
new year in, and for the despatch of business. The king made a long 
and rather an effective speech, which had been written expressly for the 
occasion by Lord Somers, and had a great effect in giving an impetus 
to the waning fidelity of the people towards the sovereign of their 
selection. They might, however, have exclaimed with the poet, that 
they “ never loved a young—or old—gazelle,” without the usual 
unhappy result; for just as they were getting to know William well, 
and love him—or at least to pretend to do so—he was attacked in such 
a manner as to make him “ sure to die.” He had been a great deal 
shaken by the severity of the winter; but it was hoped he would recover 
in the spring, which he probably might have done, but for an accident 
that befel him on the road between Kensington and Hammersmith. 
“ A-hunting he would go, would go ” in that savage suburb, whose 
wildness is remarkable to this day, and his horse coming to a block of 
stone, was unfortunate enough to find it a regular stumbling-block. 
William was thrown with some force, and experienced a fracture of the 
collar-bone, when, having been removed to Hampton Court, the medical 
men began to quarrel about the treatment of his Majesty. They of course 
made no bones about setting the collar; but a dispute arose about 
the necessity for bleeding the king, and in the heat of the argument, 
the physicians all pulled at his pulse with such fury, that they unset the 
bone “while intending,” says Burnet, “to make a dead set at one 
another.” The doctors continuing fractious, the fracture got worse, and 
at length, on the 8th of March, 1702, the royal patient expired. He 


CHAP. II.J 


CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE THIRD. 


267 


had reigned thirteen years and a half, and was in the fifty-second year 
of his age, when the fatal catastrophe happened. 



William III. out Hunting. 


The character of William will not add much to the reputation of 
British royalty in former days, when sovereigns were so bad that they 
would never have been allowed to pass current in times like these, in 
which there is a disposition to examine closely the weight and quality of 
the metal. He was by no means popular when alive, and bad characters 
do not, like old port, improve by keeping. The state of parties during his 
reign made him the centre in which a great deal of odium met, for he 
happened to form in his own person the embodiment, or rather the 
representative, of certain principles which were regarded with the utmost 
aversion by many. 

The most valuable attribute of William, which has handed him down as 









































































































268 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK VIII 


an object of respect and even of enthusiasm in the minds of some, is the 
fact of the question of constitutional monarchy having been settled in the 
affirmative by his elevation to the throne of England. His case is certainly 
valuable as a precedent, but its greatest value consists in the probability 
that its existence will spare the country hereafter from the disagreeable 
necessity of being obliged to follow it. English sovereigns have learned 
the possibility of their being set aside like James II., and replaced by 
one who, like William III., owed his power to the will of the people. 
Such revolutions as that of 1688, notwithstanding the glorious character 
that belongs to it, are better as beacons for rulers than as precedents for 
the people, since a change of dynasty, however constitutionally effected, 
must be at all times an unpleasant, not to say a deplorable process. 

William III. is entitled to the very highest admiration for having 
succeeded in holding firmly a position from which the slightest vacilla¬ 
tion would have inevitably shaken him. His early stipulation for all 
the throne or none, and his repudiation of the right of his wife to 
interfere, though domestically harsh, w r as politically respectable. The 
constitution underwent during his reign some of the most substantial 
and valuable repairs that wore ever bestowed upon it, either before or 
since, notwithstanding some very high-sounding nominal advantages 
that the country has in ancient and modern times experienced. It was 
in William’s reign that the Commons took the purse-strings of the 
country tightly in hand, and the censorship of the press was, during the 
same period, permitted to expire. The Judges w 7 ere secured in their 
places during good behaviour; and members of the Privy Council being 
compelled, by the Act of Settlement, to sign the measures they pro¬ 
posed, we obtained from William’s reign the blessing of a responsible 
Cabinet. It is true that official heads fell more frequently before than 
since, but the great salubrity of the provision to w 7 hicli we allude is 
shown in the fact that it has secured the good conduct of ministers so 
effectually, as to have preserved their heads upon their shoulders. It is 
a curious truth that the National Debt increased marvellously during 
William’s reign, and there would seem, therefore, to be some reason 
for the common assertion, that this tremendous liability is a mark of 
our national prosperity. It certainly proves our credit to be good, as a 
load of debt in the case of an individual would make it evident that his 
tradesmen had trusted him, but no one will contend that, on that 
account, he must be considered more prosperous. 

It was the great increase of the government expenses that had caused 
the augmentation of the National Debt, and afforded another illustration 
of the infallible principle, that nothing good can be had without liberally 
paying for. We might get a republic done for us no doubt at a hun¬ 
dredth part—or less—of the cost of our present excellent constitutional 
monarchy ; but we do not think any reasonable person would feel very 
anxious to try the cheap and nasty experiment. 

Some historians who .have preceded us, fall into what we consider the 
error of eulogising William as if he had been the author of all the good 


CHAP. II.] 


WILLIAM A CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGN. 


269 


that occurred in his reign, when the fact is that a great deal was 
accomplished, not alone without his agency, hut actually in spite of him. 
When he came, or rather when he was called to the throne, the nation 
had profited by experience, and had become equally sensible to the 
dangers of democratic excess and of absolute monarchy. The tyranny 
of the Republic, no less than that of the Stuarts, had pointed out the 
safety of a middle course between the two sorts of despotism ; and 
William, as a very middling person in every respect, was well adapted 
for the situation that appeared to be made for him. It was owing to 
no particular merit on his part that his reign was not arbitrary, for he 
sometimes tried his hardest to make it so ; but the good sense of the 
nation, sharpened by the troubles it had lately passed through, pre¬ 
served it against further victimisation at the hands of either kings or 
demagogues. 

As the first really constitutional sovereign, William is, we repeat, 
entitled to our respect and admiration ; but we must not forget that the 
people themselves made the mould to which, we will admit, he was 
exceedingly well adapted, for he was pliable enough to take the right 
impress, and sufficiently firm to give body and substance to the nation’s 
beau ideal of a limited mouarchy. 



COMIC til STORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII 


270 


he accession of Anne 
to the throne of 
her Anne-cestors, as 
Hume in a most 
humiliating attempt 
at humour hath it, 
was hailed with ge¬ 
neral satisfaction, for 
it usually happens 
that a new reign is 
welcomed on the old 
principle of “ any¬ 
thing for a change,” 
and most people ex¬ 
pect that some good 
may come out of it. 
It will be remem¬ 
bered that Anne was 
originally a Miss 
Hyde, being the 
child of James by 
his first wife—the daughter of Old Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon; 
and she had been married to the young man known among his familiar 
friends as “ Georgey Porgey, Prince of Denmark.” 

It is a beautiful remark of Thomson, that “ the women never can 
keep quietand Anne soon realised this estimate of the female cha 
racter by declaring war against France with the utmost promptitude. 
The Commons voted the supplies necessary for pursuing hostilities, but 
behaved rather shabbily to the Duke of Marlborough, and refused to 
settle five thousand a year upon himself and his descendants out of the 
post-office, which, as he had carried nearly every post he had come in 
contact with, he declared to be exceedingly unhandsome treatment. 

The Dutch and the Germans perceiving that the King of France had 
“ got no friends,” felt that the time had arrived for hitting him, and 
echoed the English declaration of war, though their puny voices came 
upon the French monarch’s ear like the penny whistle after the full¬ 
blown ophicleide. Marlborough was appointed generalissimo of the 
allied army, and he certainly proved himself worthy of the confidence 
reposed in him. He made the Low Countries lower than they had ever 
been before, and subsequently throwing himself upon Bavaria, he swept 


CHAPTER THE THIRD 

QUEEN ANNE 




































CHAP. HI.] 


QUEEN ANNE. 


271 


the independent elector before him, leaving that unhappy individual to 
make his election between flight and compromise. 

On the 12th of August, 1704, Marlborough observed the enemy 
mark^ig out a camp near Blenheim, and merely muttering to himself, 
“ So so, my fine fellows ; that’s what you're after, is it?” he resolved 
on their instant discomfiture. He determined to give battle, and on 
the 13th, notwithstanding a swampy country, which greatly tested his 
determination to stick at nothing, he commenced an attack in three 
columns, each of which behaved so gallantly as to have deserved a 
supplementary column to its memory. The contest was exceedingly 
fierce on both sides; but the superior skill of Marlborough rendered the 
English victorious. The general was rewarded by the grant of an 
estate, upon which was built a magnificent mansion called Blenheim, 
after the place near which the battle was fought; and future Dukes of 
Marlborough have turned many an honest, though not a very honourable 
shilling, by sharing with the housekeeper and other servants the gra¬ 
tuities received from the visitors to this splendid monument of a country’s 
generosity. 

England could not rest satisfied without interfering in the disputes of 
other states, and had lent a helping hand to the Archduke Charles of 
Austria, who was playing a sort of game at bob-cherry with the Spanish 
crown, which hung suspended over his head in a very tempting manner. 
A fleet w r as sent under Admiral Sir George Rooke to convey the arch¬ 
duke to Lisbon ; and Rooke, who was as cunning as an old crow, pro¬ 
ceeded towards Barcelona, which would have been nuts for him had he 
succeeded in taking it. In this attempt, however, he failed; but putting 
his vessel astern, and altering her gib towards Gibraltar, he made an 
attack on the fortress, which he took with the utmost facility. For this 
service the conqueror was rewarded with an empty vote of thanks, and 
he had no sooner got the copy of the resolution than he put it in his 
pipe and smoked it—according to some ; or, as others say, he merely 
lighted his pipe with the valueless document. 

Domestic affairs did not progress very pleasantly, and the English 
began to quarrel with the Scotch, who evinced their national propensity 
to come to the scratch in a very annoying manner. The Parliaments of 
the two countries came into decided collision, and the English legis¬ 
lature having prohibited the importation of Scotch heifers, “there 
arose,” says Swindle, “ a heffervescence of the most deplorable cha¬ 
racter.” The Queen proposed that there should be an immediate union 
of the two Parliaments ; but the little matter could not be arranged; 
and as the two negatives could not be induced to make an affirmative, 
Anne put an end to both by a dissolution. 

In the summer of 1705, Marlborough, who had been waiting on the 
banks of the Blue Moselle, forced the French lines, and very hard lines 
they proved both to the vanquished and the victors. 

We must here be permitted to introduce the beautiful episode of Sir 
Isaac Newton, and turn from the turmoils of war to the peaceful pursuits 

t 2 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK VIII. 


272 


of science. We are sure we shall not be accused of irrelevancy if we 
step aside from the rushing stream of history which, like a cataract, is 
hurrying us rapidly along, and enjoy a few moments of calm reflection on 
the life and merits of the great philosopher. ^ 

Isaac Newton was born in 1C42, and came as unusually little into the 
world as he went greatly, and indeed gigantically, out of it. His mother 
declared he might have been put into a quart pot at his birth, and 
therefore, had he been always judged by the rule of “ measures not men,” 
he would never have attained the elevation he has arrived at. In early 
boyhood he displayed a great mechanical turn, and buying a box of car¬ 
penter’s tools, he got perhaps the first insight into plane geometry, and 
deduced from a few wise saws, a variety of modern instances. He was 
very fond of measuring time, but not by its loss alone, for he constructed 
a wooden clock, and ascertained the position of the sun by driving nails 
into the wall—hitting, no doubt, the right one on the head \e?y readily. 
Having a shrewd suspicion that there was something in the wind, he 
would occupy himself in leaping with it and against it, to ascertain its 
power. These pranks did not elevate him much in his class, of which 
he was generally at the bottom; for the routine of his school education 
did not include trials of strength with old Boreas, and the other 
exciting pursuits in which Master Isaac Newton indulged himself. In 
course of time he was removed to Cambridge, where the works of Des- 
Cartes fell into his hands, and where those ponderous volumes, from 
their soporific effect upon youth, often fall out of the hands they have 
fallen into. Young Newton grasped them with energy, and he soon 
profited amazingly by their contents, which set his own mind at work to 
add to the stock of discovery already in existence. During the great 
plague of 1665, he was compelled to leave Cambridge for a rural retire¬ 
ment, though the rustication was not of the ordinary kind: and while 
sitting in an orchard, “ his custom sometimes of an afternoon,” an apple 
fell upon his head with considerable violence. Beginning to reason from 
this “ argumentum ad hominem ,” he asked himself why every other 
object did not at once fall to the earth; and he even speculated on the 
possibility of the moon alighting heavily, and leaving him in a literally 
moon-struck condition. It was some time before he discovered the laws 
of gravitation by which the apple had been carried to his head ; and it is 
not true, as is commonly believed, that he was struck all of a heap with 
the great truths that he has given to posterity. They were published in 
1687, at the expense of the Royal Society, under the title of the 
“ Principia; ” and it is a curious fact, that the critics of the day were not 
altogether pleased with it. Some few pronounced it “a work that ought 
to be on every gentleman’s sideboard,” and our old friend, the evening 
paper, patronised it as a production that might “ rep^y perusal but 
some very learned, very cold, very dull, and very stupid “ gentlemen of 

* A curious puzzle has been suggested by a celebrated arithmetician, who has expressed 
a desire to know bow many of the works that the reviewers say will “ repay perusal,” aro 
likely to “ repay the printer.” 


CHAP. III.J 


newton's scientific discoveries. 


273 


the press ’ “ regretted that Mr. Newton should have wasted so much 
time upon a work of such a description.” They were angry with him for 


Discovery of the Laws of Gravitation by Isaac Newton. 



what they considered his levity in popularising serious matters, and 
advised him to keep his hands off the moon, which was far too lofty a 
subject for him to meddle with. 

It has been noticed as a very unaccountable circumstance, that 
Newton never made any important addition to scientific discovery after 
he had completed his forty-fifth year; though lie lived to be eighty- 
four, and had therefore got beyond the period at which the poet’s 
apostrophe, “ 0 Vir be-eighty ,” might have been addressed to him. He 
was exceedingly fond of tobacco, and it is believed that he felt more at 
home in his astronomical reflections when he could envelope himself in 
a cloud of his own blowing. The old saying, that “ There is no smoke 
without fire,” received an apt confirmation from the fact that Newton was 
scarcely ever without a pipe in his mouth during the most brilliant and 
blazing period of his genius. 































274 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK YIII. 


We now return to Anne, who, anno 1705, went to Cambridge, where 
she knighted Mr. Newton, who was the Mathematical Professor at 
Trinity College. We feel we ought not to pass over in silence a piece 
of wonderful self-denial on the part of a lawyer, which gives to this reign 
a peculiarity that ought to make it stand apart from all that have pre¬ 
ceded or followed it. There had been formerly an old custom of making 
a present to the Lord Chancellor on New Year’s Day, at the cost of the 
practitioners, who usually contributed about fifteen hundred pounds, 
which previous keepers of the royal conscience had most uncon- 
scientiously pocketed. To the great honour of Lord Chancellor Cowper 
be it spoken, he declined the proffered bonus, which appeared to him 
to resemble somewhat too closely a bribe, and thus set an early example 
of disinterestedness, by which the tone of judicial morality was improved, 
and has at last reached the perfection we have at the present day the 
satisfaction of witnessing. 

The subject of the Union between England and Scotland, which had 
from time to time been discussed, was at length taken into serious con¬ 
sideration at a place called the Cockpit, from which the reader must not 
infer that it was considered as a sporting event, and that the betting 
men were chiefly interested in promoting it. After a great deal of dis¬ 
agreement, the preliminaries were ultimately settled, and on the 6th of 
March, 1707, the royal assent was given to the Act of Union. There 
were no less than twenty-five articles, by the majority of which the 
Scotch had been cunning enough to make the best bargain for them¬ 
selves ; and they had taken care that if the British Lion got the Lion’s 
share, they would, at least, secure the Fox’s perquisites. The Union 
took effect from the 1st of May, and the queen went in state to 
St. Paul’s, to celebrate the event with due solemnity. 

The 22nd of October in the same year derives a mournful interest 
from the loss of poor Shovel, whase ship got scuttled on the rocks of 
Scilly, and though Shovel himself went at it “ poker and tongs ” to save 
the vessel, his own and two others were involved in the same calamity. 

On the 28th of October, 1708, the queen lost her husband, Prince 
George of Denmark, who died of asthma, at Kensington. His malady, 
of course, prevented him from having a voice in public affairs ; but if he 
had had one, he would certainly have been afraid of using it. He com¬ 
bined the mildness of the moonbeam with the stupidity of the jackass, 
and not only had he been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he 
had become one entire spoon—fiddle-head and all—in his excessive 
pliability. He was, however, one of those spoons that made very little 
stir, and his removal from the busy scene of life left a gap that was 
scarcely perceptible. Within little better than three months, both 
Houses of Parliament addressed the queen, imploring her to marry 
again, which shows that they did not estimate very highly her grief at 
the loss of her first husband. Her Majesty’s reply contained no specific 
answer to the petition, but intimated her belief that a decided response 
was not expected by the applicants. 


CHAP. JTI.] 


UNION OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 


275 


On the 5th of November in the same yea»a political parson, namec 
Dr. Sacheverel, began to raise the since famous cry of “ Church in 
danger,” which, like that of “Wolf,” has been since so frequently and 
foolishly set up, that it stands a chance of being neglected when it 
really may require attention. The object of all the rant in which this 
noisy churchman indulged, was to obtain popularity, flavoured with a 
spice of martyrdom, and his opponents being silly enough to fall into 
the trap, they kept up the ball for him with a vivacity that must have 
equalled his most sanguine desire. Like a shuttlecock, that must drop 
to the ground if its elevation is not secured by frequent blows, 
Sacheverel would have tumbled irredeemably to the earth, if he had not 
been kept aloft by the knocks he experienced. He was ultimately 
exalted into the position of a delinquent standing to take his trial at 
the bar of the House of Lords ; and when he was found guilty of having 
preached a sermon, warning the public of danger to the Church, he 
had reached the highest point of glory in the estimation of the large 
mass of people who are under the influence of bigotry and prejudice. 
He was condemned to forbear from preaching for three years; but his 
sentence not excluding him from accepting a good living, one was placed 
at his disposal immediately afterwards. The reverend sufferer for 
conscience’ sake eventually got something still better, in the form of the 
living of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, where, finding it no longer worth his 
while to quarrel with the Government, he sought a vent for his turbulent 
disposition in repeated rows with his parishioners. His first sermon 
after his new appointment sold 40,000 copies, and a little calculation 
will give some idea of what the reverend gentleman’s martyrdom 
brought him in from first to last in the shape of livings, copyrights, 
and other contingencies that arise out of a well-managed popularity. 

In the latter end of 1711, some very disreputable disclosures, in 
which the Duke of Marlborough and Mr. Walpole were chiefly involved, 
were brought before the House of Commons. Marlborough, not satis¬ 
fied with his pay, pensions, and other emoluments, had been taking a 
percentage on every transaction in which he had been confidentially 
concerned; while Walpole, in his capacity of Secretary at War, had been 
playing the same game as the illustrious soldier. Marlborough and his 
wife w T ere in the enjoyment of upwards of sixty thousand a year, so that 
there was no excuse for them on the score of poverty; and even if they 
had been in want of cash, they might have done what, as we have 
already hinted, their successors have done since, namely, shown Blen¬ 
heim to the public, and shared with their own domestics the daily 
proceeds. The duke and duchess were deprived of their offices, while 
Mr. Walpole was expelled from the House of Commons, amid a chorus 
of “ Serve him right ” from nearly the whole of his fellow-countrymen. 

Marlborough was further accused by Lord Paulet of having knocked 
his own officers on the head, in order to be enabled to sell their com¬ 
missions ; but this would seem to have been a most superfluous piece 
of atrocity, for he might have easily got their heads knocked off in a 


278 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK VIII. 


rather her strength, was shown, the various authorities are not yet agreed 
upon. She was a mother to her people, a master to her husband, a 
pattern to her own sex, and a terror to ours. She was obstinately 
attached to her own way, and it was only the fortunate feebleness of her 
intellect that prevented her from developing herself into that gigantic 
nuisance, a strong-minded woman. Though her own mental powers 
were not sufficient to throw lustre on her reign, it was rendered glorious 
by numerous men of learning and genius who were the contemporaries 
of her majesty. We have already enjoyed a paragraph or two with 
Newton, and we must not forget Locke, who furnished so many keys to 
the understanding and the difficult arts of government. 

Considering the fuss that has lately been made about the merit of 
having originated penny and twopenny publications, we ought not to 
forget that the modern claimants to the honour of the idea did but steal it 
from Steele, whose “ Tatler,” started in 1709, was followed by the 
“ Spectator ” and the “Guardian.” To the more recent projectors of 
cheap periodicals we are quite ready to allow the originality of their 
assertion, that their speculations are not intended for their own profit, 
but to fulfil exclusively the great purpose of benefiting the community. 
In compliance with these large-hearted and benevolent intentions, we 
may, we suppose, look with confidence to the day when the produce will 
be paid over for the benefit of the people, whom the existing race of 
cheap periodical proprietors love so very much better than they do 
themselves, if we are to believe their protestations and their prospectuses. 

We may at all events say for the reign of Anne, that it was much 
freer than the reign of Victoria from these wondrous professions of dis¬ 
interestedness, which we have been waiting in vain, for the last ten years, 
to see carried into practice. 


CHAP. IV.] 


GEORGE THE FIRST. 


27 ? 


CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 

GEORGE THE FIRST. 


t is not without some 
feeling of humiliation 
ancl regret that the his¬ 
torian finds England so 
badly off for a sovereign 
as to be obliged to bor¬ 
row one from abroad, 
and her throne in the 
seventeenth century, 
like her stage of the 
nineteenth, to be in¬ 
debted for its support 
to foreign adaptations. 
The British Lion must 
have been a poor cub in 
those degenerate days, 
for there does not seem 
to have been a roar of 
remonstrance from that 
indifferent beast when 
the Elector of Hanover 
quietly took the crown 
from the royal bandbox, 
caused it to be altered 
to suit a gentleman’s in¬ 
stead of a lady’s head, and, using the sceptre for a walking stick, coolly 
stepped into the kingly office. 

This somewhat more than middle-aged gentleman was the eldest son 
of Ernest Augustus, first elector—and anything but an independent 
elector—of Brunswick, and of the Princess Sophia, grand-daughter to 
James I., through whom he had pretensions to a good title, though, oddly 
enough, the Stuart family being repudiated, the only legitimate portion 
of his claim was that which the country refused to recognise. It seemed, 
however, that England, after its numerous wars of succession, which had 
formed a long succession of wars, was resolved upon putting up with 
anything for peace and quietness—a contented disposition of which we 
have long experienced the blessings, inasmuch as it has given us a family 
of sovereigns under whose constitutional sway the country has enjoyed an 
unexampled degree of prosperity and happiness. 





































































£80 ' COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK VIII. 

George I. was a sober, decent, steady-going person of fifty-four when 
he arrived to undertake the superintendence of England, by the day, 
week, month, or year; and, in fact, to do monarch’s work in general. 
He was proclaimed king in London, on the 1st of August, 1714, but was 
in no particular hurry to enter upon his new dignity, for he only arrived, 
via Greenwich, on September the 18th, and his coronation took place on 
the 20th of October following. He was of course old enough to know 
pretty well what he was about; and though he had attained that respect¬ 
able maturity which, among the feathered tribe, is believed to form a 
protection against capture by chaff, he seems to have acted on the 
impression that younger birds might certainly be caught by the same 
unsatisfactory material. His first plan, therefore, upon his arrival, was to 
go about uttering what he called his “maxim,” which he said was “ never 
to abandon his friends, to do justice to all the world, and to fear no 
man.” This egotistical puff for his own qualities may have been politic, 
but it was by no means dignified, and reminds us more of the old self- 
laudatory naval song commencing “ We tars have a maxim d’ye see,” 
than of any language or sentiment becoming to the mouth and mind of 
a monarch. If the English people had put upon the clap-trap sentiment 
of the Hanoverian its true interpretation, they would have seen that it 
pledged him more to his old subjects than engaged him to his new ones ; 
and the result of his reign quite justified the view we are disposed to 
take of the meaning of his “ maxim.” 

Immediately on the death of Anne, the Privy Council had met and 
deputed the Earl of Dorset to go over and apprise George of his acces¬ 
sion to the crown, when the earl mixed up the announcement with so 
many fulsome compliments, that flattery took the name of Dorset butter 
—a figure that has remained in force from those days to the present. 

One of the best, and perhaps the boldest acts of the Council, was the 
appointment of Mr. Addison—the celebrated contributor to what was 
termed par excellence the P. P. or popular periodical of the day—to a 
post in the Government. The late Ministry had been ignominiously 
displaced, and Bolingbroke used to dangle about at the door of the 
Council-room with a bag of papers in his hand, expecting, or at least 
hoping to be called in, while menials were instructed to deride, or, as 
the modern phrase has it, to “ chaff” him in the passages. Bolingbroke 
was mean enough to brook even this for the chance of place; but he 
would occasionally turn round and shake his fist, including his hag, in 
a menacing manner at the crew who passed upon him these insults. 
Occasionally they would slap him on the back, exclaiming, “ Well, 
Bolly, my boy, you are indeed a regular out-and-outer.” Nor can it be 
doubted, that, had the air been popular at the period, the Ethiopian 
melody of “ Who’s dat knocking at de Door ” would have been fre¬ 
quently sung or whistled in the face of Bolingbroke by the scamps in 
the waiting-room. 

The king had only just arrived, and had merely gone into his bed¬ 
room to put on a clean collar—that of the Order of the Garter, if we 


chap, iv.] George’s arrival in England. 281 

may hazard a shrewd guess—when a party of Whigs rushed in, and 
began to ear-whig him with the utmost industry. In fact, the touting 
that took place for the vacant offices can only be imagined by an indi¬ 
vidual who has once landed at Boulogne, and found himself torn to 



George I. putting on a clean Collar. 

pieces by the hirsute representatives of some fifty hotels, each anxious 
to accommodate the new arrival. The whole of the Whig party pounced 
upon George, and thrust their pretensions before him with the per¬ 
severance of the class of Frenchmen, commonly called commissioners, to 
whom w r e have alluded. As these persons snatch at a traveller’s cloak, 
walking-stick, or carpet-bag, the Whig touters almost snatched at gold 
sticks, official portfolios, or anything else they could lay their hands 
upon. “Allow me to take charge of your conscience, sir,” roared Lord 
Cowper; “ you ’ll find it very heavy to carry, sir; pray give it to me, 
sir; I ’ll take it down for you, sir; ” and thus the Chancellorship was in 
a measure seized by this determined place-hunter. “ You ’ll lose that 
privy seal, sir, if you don’t take care,” bellowed the Earl of Wharton; 
“you had much better entrust it to me; there are some very bad 
characters about just now,”—and thus, by a mixture of warning and worry, 
the privy seal was secured for himself b} r the rapacious nobleman. 

Bolingbroke, after hanging about the official passages for a short time 
longer, now listening at the door, now peeping through the keyhole, and 
alternately bullied or bantered by his more fortunate rivals as they 
passed to and fro, resolved on flying to the Continent. Several signifi- 




























































































282 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII 


cant exclamations of “ You’d better be off; ” “ Come, come, this won’t 
do; ” and “We can’t have a parcel of idle fellows lurking about the 
Treasury,” convinced him that he had nothing to hope, and everything 
to fear from the new parliament. He accordingly took from the corner 
of his sitting-room an old official wand, and sobbing out, “Farewell, 
my once cherished stick ! ” he cut it for ever. The monopoly of all the 
snug places by the Whigs rendered them extremely overbearing, and as 
“ Britons never, never, never will be slaves ” to the same party for any 
considerable length of time, they became impatient of Whig arrogance, 
and ready for an alterative in the shape of some regular old Tory 
tyranny. The king became unpopular, and his birth-day passed over 
without the smallest notice, as if to hint to him that he was not to be 
born at all, unless he changed his system. 

George, instead of conciliating, attempted to crush the disaffected, 
and like a bad equestrian mounted on a restive horse, he began pulling 
at the rein, and tightening the curb, instead of mildly but firmly 
exclaiming, “ Wo, wo, boys! steady, boys; steady!” to his now some¬ 
what frisky people. The Habeas Corpus Act—the great British Free 
List—was suspended, and the Pretender was used as a pretence to 
alarm the people, and reconcile them to the most arbitrary measures. 
The Riot Act was in this year, 1715, read a third time and passed, 
but it has this peculiarity, which distinguishes it from every other legis¬ 
lative act, that it requires to be read again on every occasion of its 
being brought into requisition. 

These measures only added fuel to the fire that was now setting the 
country in a blaze ; and even the University of Oxford was threatened 
with assault by Major-General Pepper, who was the first to make the 
now venerable joke about mustard, which, with all our courage, we 
confess we dare not chronicle.* 

In the north, the insurrection took a very bold form, and Mr. Forster, 
a gentleman of great ability—a barrister, we believe—joined with 
the Earl of Derwentwater, who was ready with all his retainers, the 
only kind of retainers, by the way, with which his learned colleague was 
at all familiar. Being joined by some gentlemen in blue bonnets, who 
had come from over the border, they proclaimed the Pretender, and 
would have seized upon Newcastle, with the intention of sparing the 
coals and sacking only the city; but the gate had been shut, and the 
whole party was not strong enough to force it open. They retired 
therefore to Hexham, and a literary gentleman among them bewailed 
their failure as he sat in the coffee-room of the Inn at Hexham, in 
doleful hexameters. They next retired by way of Lancaster to Preston, 
whose Pans they hoped would prove preserving pans to themselves ; but 
General Wills being sent to attack them, proved the fact, that where there 
are the Wills there are always the ways of accomplishing an object. 

* The curious reader is referred to “ Joe Miller.” Perhaps the new edition just 
brought out under the title of “ The Family Joe Miller,” is the best for the student’s 
purposes. 


CHAP. IV.] 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE PRETENDER. 


SS3 


Mr. Forster, hearing that there was no hope, despatched a trumpeter— 
a gentlemanly young man, who was quite equal to a solo of the kind—to 
negotiate a treaty. He could get no other answer than an intimation 
that the rebels might expect to be slaughtered ; and, being very much cut 
up by the news, they wisely resolved to surrender. The noblemen and 
officers of the party were sent to London, where they were led through 
the streets bound together and pinioned, which caused one of them to 
wish that his pinions were those of a bird, so that he might be enabled 
to fly away from his captivity. Though the Pretender must have known, 
or might have known, that his pretensions were about as hopeless as 
they could possibly be, he resolved on landing in Scotland, and he positively 
arrived with nothing more than a special train of six gentlemen. He 
came in disguise, and passed through Aberdeen without being known, 
till he came to Feterosse, where he was met by the Earl of Mar and 
thirty nobles of the first quality, though all their quality could not of 
course make up for their lamentable deficiency in quantity. When the 
Pretender saw his friend’s beggarly show of adherents, he addressed Mar 
with great levity, telling him he had been “ a sad Mar to his hopes,” 
and indulged in other poor frivolities. “ As I Ve come, however,” he 
added, “ I may as well be proclaimed; ” and the ceremony w T as gone 
through with mock gravity. He next proceeded to Scone, “for,” said 
he, “ we must have a coronation, you know ; ” and he behaved altogether 
in such a manner as to lead us to believe that he relished the ludicrous 
points of his own very ridiculous position. Plaving gone so far in the 
mockery, he crowned the absurdity instead of being crowned himself, by 
making a speech to his grand council, intimating that he had no arms 
to fight with, no ammunition to load the arms with if he possessed any, 
and no money to purchase the ammunition if he felt disposed to try its 
effects upon his enemies. Under these circumstances, he intimated that 
his presence among them should be regarded as a flying visit, just to 
say “ How d’ye do ” and, “ Good bye ; ” after which, with the latter salu¬ 
tation on his lips, he popped into a boat, and was “ off again ” for the 
Continent. 

Instead of allowing this miserable rebellion to die a natural death— 
we cannot say that it ended in smoke, for the rebels had no money to 
purchase gunpowder—the government of the day had the rashness to 
keep the tiling alive by prosecuting those who had been concerned in it. 
Half-a-dozen nobles were seized and put upon their trial, when the poor 
creatures whimpering out an acknowledgment of their guilt, were sen¬ 
tenced to death, and two were taken to the scaffold. * A third, the Lord 
Nithesdale, had also been condemned; but his mother having come to 
see him in prison, they got up between them a dramatic incident, by 
effecting an exchange of dress ; and while the lady remained in gaol like 
a man, the gentleman walked away in female attire. 

The prosecutions were not limited to the chiefs of this rebellious 
movement—if that can be called a movement which stuck fast in its 
very first steps—but some of the humblest adherents, or suspected 


284 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[COOK VIII. 


adherents, of the Pretender’s cause were included in the proceedings 
taken by the Government. Several were hanged, and some hundreds 
experienced what was facetiously termed the “royal mercy,” by undergoing 
transportation for life to North America. This unnecessary and injudi¬ 
cious rigour had the effect of making the Government so unpopular, that, 
although according to the Triennial Act the Parliament ought to have 
been dissolved, the ministers were afraid of appealing to the country, 
and formed the audacious determination to introduce a Septennial Act, 
which, by the force of perseverance and impudence combined, was posi¬ 
tively carried. Though George resided personally in England, his 
heart had never quitted Hanover, and he was continually keeping his 
eye upon the aggrandisement of that paltry electorate. For this pur¬ 
pose, he made free use of English money; and having intelligence at all 
times of the small Duchies that the poverty of their owners occasionally 
threw into the market, he picked up those of Bremen and Verden at a 
very low figure. 

Among the inconveniences occasioned to this country by allowing the 
sceptre to get into foreign hands, w r as the involving of England in 
foreign quarrels about foreign interests. Spain being in an unpleasant 
predicament, called upon George I. to join a league in her favour, and 
threatened to repudiate his claims to his dismal little duchies of Bremen 
and Verden, if he did not take the step that was required of him. As 
he could not well commit himself thus far, a war was commenced against 
England, and a Spanish expedition under the Duke of Ormond was 
fitted out to make a descent upon Scotland. With that happy adroitness 
in ruling the waves for which Britannia has long been celebrated, she 
caused them to rise as one billow against the hostile fleet, which was 
rapidly dispersed by the ocean’s upishness. Though the buoyancy of 
Britain, assisted by the boisterous energy of the sea, defeated the 
attempts of foreign powers, the internal condition of the country was far 
from satisfactory. King George neither comprehended the character nor 
the language of his new subjects, and a good understanding between the 
prince and the people was therefore impossible. His Majesty spent as 
much time and as much money as he could upon the Continent, leaving 
his ministers to propose what measures they pleased, while he transmitted 
by post his consent to them, without knowing, or caring to inquire their 
object. 

Perhaps, however, the heaviest blow that England’s prosperity ever 
received was the result of one of the most marvellous instances on record 
of a co-operation between knavery and folly. To add to the extraor¬ 
dinary character of the infatuation we are about to record, the scheme 
that led to it was not original, and the victims had consequently received 
a warning by which they failed to profit. A Scotchman of the name of 
Law had swindled the whole of France by starting a company to pick 
up fortunes in the Mississippi, which proved one of the most gigantic 
misses ever known ; but as one batch of fools will make many, it was 
calculated, shrewdly enough, that the Mississippi hoax, instead of putting 


chap. iv. 1 


285 


THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 

people on their guard against fraud, would have just the effect of pre¬ 
paring them to be taken in by it. 

A scrivener named Blunt—a fellow of uncommon sharpness, whose 
name is emblematical of a great partiality for cash—suggested a concern 
called the South Sea Company, which was to purchase all the debts due 
from the Government to all trading corporations, and thus become the 
sole creditor of the state. The national debt was in fact to be bought up, 
and as there is a pretty clear understanding that the national debt never 
will, or never can be paid, the advantages of the project must upon the 
slightest reflection have appeared at best apocryphal. The scrip in this 
grand concern came out heavy, for the securities were flatter than the 
public, when a bright idea flashed across the mind of Blunt for raising 
the wind and puffing up the shares in the South Sea Scheme to the 
utmost height that could be desired. He spread a report through paid 
paragraphs in the newspapers, that Gibraltar and Minorca were about 
to be exchanged for Peru, and the whole world went mad at the 
peru-sal. The story of this monstrous piece of universal insanity would 
afford a fine subject for an article from the pen of Dr. Forbes Winslow ;* 
and indeed had he lived in the eighteenth century, the whole popu¬ 
lation would have been worthy to become the patients of that able and 
experienced master of the science of mental pathology. 

The mental aberration of the public proved itself in the most prepos¬ 
terous demand for shares from persons willing to stake not only every 
penny they had, but many pounds which they had not. The proverb 
that “ one fool makes many,” found a parallel in the fact that one 
knave makes many; for the South Sea schemer called into existence 
a number of imitators, all anxious to profit by the credulity which 
he had excited. One adventurer made his fortune one fine morn¬ 
ing by issuing a prospectus intimating that he would secure to every 
one who paid two guineas on the instant, an annuity of one hundred 
pounds. The preliminary deposits poured in so plentifully that he 
obtained two thousand subscribers in a few hours, though the details of 
the plan were only to be forthcoming at some future day. We regret 
exceedingly our inability to form an opinion on the merits of this project, 
for its originator having been called away suddenly on the very night 
after the first day’s subscriptions had been paid in, pursued his way to the 
Continent by the light of the moon, and has never yet returned. Charity 
bids us presume that he died in the effort to mature the gigantic idea he 
had conceived for enriching those who had honoured him with their cash 
and their confidence. A few little episodes of this description tended to 
shake the faith of the public in the great parent hoax, and the monster 
bubble, formed, as it were, by the whole of the South Sea concentrated 
into one tremendous drop, gave symptoms of dropping to the ground 
Those who witnessed the Railway Mania of 1845 can form a conception 
_though a very inadequate one—of the madness that prevailed in the 

* See the Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology. Edited by 
Forbes Winslow, M.D. 

VOL. II 


U 


286 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII. 


early part of the eighteenth century, under the cunning influence of 
Blunt, who, strange to say, was a living illustration of a marvellous mis¬ 
nomer, for this Blunt was the essence of sharpness, at a time when 
obtuseness was the characteristic of all the rest of the community. 
The amiable weaknes which, in 1845, induced the whole population to 
concur in planning railways for every hole and corner of the world, 
the philanthropy which would have whirled the Cherokees through the 
air at sixty miles an hour and twenty per cent, profit, or brought Kam- 
schatka, Chelsea, the Catskill mountains, Knightsbridge, and Niagara, 
all into a group by the aid of trunk-lines or branches connecting the 
whole of them together, the mixture of benevolence and self-interest 
which suggested these noble achievements, cannot bear a comparison 
with the universality of the movement that the South Sea Bubble called 
forth. Its bursting, however, nearly swamped the entire nation, for 
the bubble had been so extensive that scarcely any one escaped its 
influence, or could keep his head above water, when the awful inunda¬ 
tion occurred. 

Royalty itself had not been exempt from the prevailing madness, and 
the Prince of Wales had been appointed Governor of the Welsh Copper 
Company, which was to have supplied saucepans to the whole civilised 
world, and kept the pot boiling for the inhabitants of every corner 
of the globe. The capital proposed to be raised for all the various 
bubbles in agitation, amounted to three hundred millions, though few of 
the concerns had even the capital of the soi-disant millionaire in the 
farce, who having made promises of boundless liberality, and undertaken 
to make the fortune of the waiting-maid of his inamorata, finished with a 
tender of a fourpenny piece as an earnest of his future bounty. 

It would form a curious chapter in this or any other history, to trace 
the fluctuations in South Sea Stock; but we cannot afford to convert 
our pages into a Share List of the eighteenth century. Upon the first 
fall in the Stock, attempts were made to preserve it from a further 
decline, first by shutting up the transfer books, and secondly by prepos¬ 
terous promises of impossible dividends. The Directors kindly 
guaranteed fifty per cent for twelve years, from and after the ensuing 
Christmas ; and it is probable that the old saying, that “ Such a thing 
is coming, and so is Christmas ” first arose out of the South Sea Bubble, 
for the Stock fell from 800 to 150, between the 26th of August, when 
the prospect was held out, and the 30th of September, when people 
had got a shrewd suspicion that it would never be realised. 

In proportion to the extreme credulity the nation had shown, was the 
savage disappointment it now exhibited. The Directors of the South 
Sea Company who had been encouraged in their audacious swindling by 
the blind rapacity of their dupes—who in their haste to devour everythin" 
they could lay hold of, swallowed every knavish story they were told— 
the Directors, who after all had merely speculated on the avarice and 
stupidity of the rest of the world, were assailed with the utmost 
vindictiveness. Their conduct was brought before Parliament I some of 


CHAP. IV.] 


DEATH OF GEORGE THE FIRST. 


287 


them were taken into custody, and all were called upon to explain the 
grounds on which these calculations of profit were made, though the 
stockholders were not required to state what reasons they had for 
believing with their eyes shut, all the evidently fallacious promises that 
had been held out to them. A confiscation of the property of most of 
the Directors took place, and an inquiry before Parliamen proved that 
several members of the Legislature, and even ministers, had received 
considerable slices of South Sea Stock for their assistance in promul¬ 
gating this monster swindle. 

The ruin that had been brought upon all classes of society, was 
aggravated by a necessity for further taxation to carry on the increased 
expense of Home Government, and of the costly foreign relations 
which the country had entered into. It has unfortunately happened that 
the foreign relations of England have been generally very poor relations, 
and they have consequently taken a great deal out of her pockets by 
their necessities, while they have added little to her respectability by 
their position and character. Like poor relations in general, they were 
a dreadful drag, and it was necessary to contribute to their support by 
putting fresh burdens on the British people. Among these was a tax 
on malt, which, being extended to Scotland, caused a general fermenta¬ 
tion ; for the Scotch were always remarkable for their love of whisky, 
which they easily promoted into a love of liberty, when it suited at once 
their pocket and their purpose to assume the attitude of patriots. The 
tax—not the whisky—was, however, crammed down their throats in 
spite of the cry they had succeeded in getting up for untaxed toddy, 
which they, of course, pronounced to be the safeguard of their Constitu¬ 
tion, as everything else becomes in its turn, when it seems to be placed 
in jeopardy. The .rioters, however, could get no persons of rank or 
influence to join in the great whisky movement, which the masses had 
taken into their heads, and order was restored after a few lives had 
been sacrificed. 

On the 2nd of November, 1726, Sophia Dorothea, nominally, but 
never practically, Queen of England, died in the prison at Hanover, 
to which her husband had committed her. This lady had formed an 
attachment for a Count Koningsmark, whom the king her husband, 
then Elector of Hanover, unceremoniously butchered in an anteroom. 
As the historians who have preceded us call his Majesty a strong minded 
man, we presume that there is something intellectually vigorous in the 
commission of a murder, though we confess we are at a loss to discover 
the extraordinary fact which other writers appear to have recognised. 
Not very long after the death of his wife George repaired—or rather 
he went very much out of repair, for his health was greatly damaged— 
to Hanover. He was taken very ill on the road, and was seized with 
apoplexy to the unhappy perplexity of his attendants, whom he never¬ 
theless desired to “ push along and keep moving.” They accordingly 
did so, and the royal carriage was hastened, but his Majesty was only 
being driven to extremities, for on the lltli of June, 1727, he expired 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


288 


[book vhi. 


at Osnaburgh, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of 
his reign 

The particulars of his death have been very circumstantially given, 
and as they are rather characteristic of George I., we will give them 
with our accustomed brevity. He had been in perfect health on the 
previous evening, and ate a hearty supper of sheeps’ hearts, including a 
tremendous melon, to which the melancholy result has been attributed. 
Resuming his journey towards Hanover at 3 a. m. he was seized with 
griping pains, but believing that one mischief would correct another, he 
fancied the supper that had disagreed with him would be counteracted 
in its consequences by a dinner, which he began lustily calling for. 
When it was placed before him he could eat nothing—an incapacity so 
unusual with George, or as some called him, Gorge the First, that his 
attendants were seized with alarm and astonishment. Having again 
entered his carriage, he exclaimed in quaint French, “ C'est fait de 
moi ,” which we need scarcely intimate means either “ I'm done for,” 
or “It’s all up with me.” In the course of the same night his ex¬ 
istence coming to an end proved the too fatal accuracy of his own 
conclusion. 

George I. had nothing in his character to justify us in keeping 
George II waiting to be shown up to the throne, where in the ensuing 
chapter we shall have the pleasure of seeing him. The first George 
was a person of somewhat feeble intellects, exceedingly shy in public, 
but he could “ come out ” at a private tea-party at home very effectively. 
His tastes were none of the most refined, and he voted all letters ex¬ 
ceedingly dry but 0. H. V.—such was the wretched pun the king made 
on eau dc vie —which he was very partial to. It might be regarded as 
a redeeming point in the character of his Majesty that he was very fond 
of Punch, which he regularly “ took in,” but this feather in his cap 
must be plucked out, for w r e find the Punch he patronised was the 
liquor, and not the periodical. Avarice was another of the most promi¬ 
nent features of his character, and he actually risked the throne itself on 
several occasions, because he would not spare a few pounds for the 
purchase of that floating loyalty that in consequence of the venality and 
poverty of the ancient aristocracy was always to be had at a certain price 
in the market. He had also the shabby trick of never carrying any 
money in his own pocket, so that he was always obliged to dip into the 
pockets of his companions to pay the expenses incurred, either at home 
or abroad, and many of his Court used to get as far away as possible 
from the side of the king when there was any thing to pay, for he was 
sure to ask them for a loan on such occasions. 

It seems from pretty good authority * that he fancied himself to be 
an usurper ; but he flattered himself a great deal too much in believing 
that the English nation would have quietly allowed an act of usurpation 
from so unimportant a personage as he would have been, but for the 
position into which he was called by the voice of the people. He 

* “ Lord Wharncliffe’s Letters,” and “ Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s Works.” 





























































































































































% 

« • 







ciiap. iv.l 


CHARACTER OF IIIS COURT. 


289 


preferred Hanover to England; “ but,” says Smith, “ there is no 
accounting for tastes,” and we will therefore make no effort to unravel 
the mystery of this absurd preference. 

The Court of George I. was remarkable for its laxity, though there 
was more external propriety than used to prevail in the days of 
Charles II. The latter monarch openly offended against the rules of 
decency; but George I. was just as bad in a quiet way, and imported 
into the aristocracy of England two or three vulgar, low-born, German, 
female favourites, whose successors now boast of their illustrious 
ancestors. 

It is a somewhat interesting fact that charity schools were first esta¬ 
blished in the year 1698, when the predecessor of George I. was on the 
throne ; and the antiquarian will perhaps tell us whether the muffin-cap 
is of greater antiquity than the muffin. We believe such to be the case, 
for the muffin is of comparatively modern date, and is the contemporary 
of its rival or companion, the crumpet. How the muffin-cap came to 
put the muffin into anybody's head, is a question too difficult for any but 
the archaeologist. 




290 


COMIC HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII. 


CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 

GEOEGE THE SECOND- 

While George I. was alive, lie and the Prince of Wales were always 
having high words in low Dutch to the discredit of themselves and the 
disgust of the bewildered courtiers. To such a pitch had the animosity 
between father and son been carried, that young Master George, the 
heir apparent to the throne, had been forbidden the palace, and he had 
frequently held long conversations through the fan-light with the hall 
porter, who could only show his face above the door-way, and exclaim, 
“ Very sorry, your Royal Highness, but it’s the governor’s orders, and 
I can’t let you in.” Which of these two unnatural relatives may have 
been most to blame we are not in a condition to determine, but the 
father who shuts his doors against a son, and drives him from home, is, 
■primci facie, a brute, and George I.’s conduct to his wife affords collateral 
evidence of his being devoid of feeling towards those who were nearly 
allied to him. Tt may be generally taken for granted that sons are 
only indifferent towards parents who are bad, and if young George 
failed in respect or affection towards old George, it was because old 
George had done nothing to inspire in young George the sentiments 
which should have been entertained by a son for his father. 

Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, had endeavoured to bring the 
precious couple together on friendly terms, but they would often quarrel 
in his presence, and appeal to Sir Robert until the frequency with which 
they invoked the support of their referee, by loud exclamations of “ So 
help me Bob! ” turned the phrase into a proverb, which is to this day 
prevalent among the lower and more energetic classes of the community. 
When George II. came to the throne, he expressed his desire to “ keep 
on ” Sir Robert Walpole as minister, if the situation continued to suit 
that individual, whose acknowledgment that he was “ very comfortable,” 
concluded the arrangement for the continuance of the existing 
government. 

Walpole was one of the most dishonest ministers that ever lived, and 
it was his policy to resort to corruption of the grossest kind to ensure 
success; “ for,” as he would sometimes say, “the manure must not be 
spared, if you wish for an abundant harvest.” He accordingly laid it on 
so extravagantly thick, that the expense of the cultivation of his political 
connections was prodigious, and the national resources were frequently 
dipped into, for the purpose of serving the personal objects of the 
Minister. The sinking fund had a tremendous hole made in it, where 
—to steal a figure from the plumber’s art—a waste-pipe was inserted, 
and laid on to the pocket of the premier, who, collecting the floating 
capital into a private reservoir of his own, turned it on among his 


CHAP. V.] 


SKETCH OF NATIONAL MANNERS. 


291 


creatures with great prodigality. To meet the drain that was going on, 
new taxes were imposed, or in other words, the people were treated as 
if they had been an Artesian well, and were bored to the most frightful 
extent for the sort of currency by which a liquidation of the liabilities of 
the state was to be effected. 

The nation, recognising a swindling spirit in its rulers, gave symptoms 
of the imitative mania which invariably causes the vices of the great to 
be copied by the little. Speculations of the wildest and most dishonest 
nature were set on foot among every class, from the highest to the 
lowest, and there is no question that the Rogue's March would have 
been the most appropriate National Anthem for the period. From 
quiet fraud, the country soon fell into downright robbery, and the people 
got into the habit of plundering each other in the thoroughfares, without 
going through the formality—common in our own days—of issuing a 
prospectus, and advertising a project. The first advertisement generally 
came upon the victim in the shape of a blow upon the head in the 
public streets, the preliminary deposit was extorted from him in the 
shape of the first article of value that could be easily snatched away, 
and the calls were exacted in rapid succession by a demand upon every 
one of his pockets. There was no hope of protection from the police, 
for the members of the force were too busy in robbing on their own 
account, to bother themselves about the robberies that were being com¬ 
mitted by others. It was, in fact, a case of Every Man his Own Pick¬ 
pocket ; and protection, being everybody’s business, was soon considered 
nobody’s business, until the > whole kingdom was exposed to a sort of 
daily scramble, in the course of which Shakspeare’s description of larjo's 
purse, “ Twas mine, ’tis his,” was every hour realised. Things were, of 
course, in a most unsettled state, for nobody thought of settling anything 
—not even a washing bill—during the existence of the universal 
plunder system, and a riot every other day was the ordinary average 
of popular turbulence. Even the Scotch grew 7 warm, and becoming* 
conscientiously opposed to the legal infliction of death, they attended 
the execution of a smuggler to make a great moral demonstration 
against capital punishment. In the excess of their philanthropic 
sympathy with the convict, they began pelting the authorities, who 
were on the point of being murdered, when John Porteus, the 
captain of the guard, interfered to save the lives of his comrades. 
Some time afterwards, the philanthropists, to prove their consistent 
abhorrence of the punishment of death, seized upon Porteus, who had 
officiated in keeping the peace at the execution, and hanged him at the 
Salt Market. 

In the year 1737 the queen died, and the king set up a piteous 
howl, though he had ill-used her majesty on many occasions ; but it 
was well remarked by a philosopher of the period, that by the sincerity 
with which George II. wept her dead, he almost teaches us to forget 
the severity with which he wapt her living. 

The year 1740 was rendered remarkable by a severe frost, which 


292 COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. TilOOK VIII. 

confined Father Thames to his bed with a dreadful cold, until the 17th 
of February, from the 26th of December previous. A fair was held on 
the ice, but amid these rejoicings the watermen were dissatisfied at 
being deprived of their ordinary fare, and the fishermen complained 
that they had been able to net nothing during the frost’s continuance. 

The disputes of the Continent furnished occupation, as usual, for 
English troops and English money, nor was it long before a difference 
between the Elector of Bavaria and Maria Theresa caused the Earl of 
Stair to be sent to keep his eyes open, with 16,000 men, in the lady’s 
interest. Stair, after staring at 60,000 Frenchmen face to face for some 
time, began to think he had a very poor look out, though joined by the 
king himself, and his son, the Duke of Cumberland. The whole three 
of them got beaten like so many old sacks by Marshal Saxe at the 
battle of Fontenoy. Cumberland, who had put his best leg foremost, 
got it badly wounded. George rode along the lines—at the back, we 
believe—urging on the soldiers to fight for their king, while Stair seems 
to have been lost sight of, or perhaps to have run away, though v/e 
must admit that this flight of Stairs must be considered apocryphal. 

While these disasters were going on abroad, a correspondence was 
being kept up between the Pretender, James Stuart, and his British 
friends, who promised that if he or his son Charles Edward would effect 
a landing in Scotland, there should be a good supply of horses and 
carriages; but one would imagine his friends were a parcel of job- 
masters, by the quality of the aid they tendered, and indeed a job was 
their object, for all but the most unprincipled of the party were for 
abandoning the hopeless project. 

Though James himself was a bird far too venerable to be attracted by 
Caledonian chaff, his son was sanguine enough to hope that by coming 
over to be met by a few glass coaches and hackney chariots, Ins cause 
would be aided. He wrote to say when he might be expected, and 
without waiting for an answer, he put to sea in a small frigate. He was 
joined by the Elizabeth , a sixty-gun ship, when an English liner, called 
the Lion, appeared on the foaming main, and an engagement com¬ 
menced, which rendered it necessary for the Elizabeth to go into 
Brest harbour for refuge. At the end of eighteen days he reached 
the Hebrides, but the prospect was so wretched that the few adherents 
who met him recommended him very strongly to be off again as 
speedily as possible. Charles Edward was however obstinate, and on 
the 11th of August, 1745, he took out of his portmanteau and unfurled 
the standard of the Stuarts in the pass of Glenfinnan. Attempts were 
made to obtain recruits, but they poured, or rather dribbled in so slowly, 
that the whole insurrection might have been broken up had it been 
nipped in the bud; but while Sir John Cope, the commander of the 
king’s forces, was capering about the hills, and dragging his army of 
flats across the mountains, the young Charles Edward gained time 
enough to add to the strength of his company. Cope not coming up to 
cope with the rebels, they pushed on to Perth and Stirling, but they 


CHAP. V.] 


THE YOUNG PRETENDER. 


293 


soon made an acquisition of still more sterling value, by taking posses 
sion of Edinburgh. Here the young prince, who had landed only with 
seven adherents, found himself at the head of four thousand men, most 
of whom had neither arms nor discipline, but brimming over with the 
froth of enthusiasm, thay presented to their chief a refreshing aspect. 

Sir John Cope, having fumbled his way out of the hills, had got to 
. Preston among the pans, where he was seized with a panic, and being 
set upon by the Scotch, was utterly routed. Returning to Edinburgh 
after his success Prince Charles Edward had King James proclaimed in 
the usual form ; and the King of France, who had stood aloof while the 
result was doubtful, sent over a small parcel of arms and a few packets 
of powder, by Yvay of encouragement. He promised also that a French 
army should soon follow the arms, for Charles Edward had no soldiers 
to match the matchless matchlocks that had arrived from the French 
sovereign. Trusting to the word of his Gallic Majesty the young 
Pretender ventured to cross the border in a blue bonnet, attended by a 



The Blue Bonnets coming over the Border. 


large body of adherents in the same interesting coiffure, and on the 
29th of November, 1745, lie fixed Ins head quarters at Manchestei. 



































294 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


[DOOIv VIII. 


The news of the approach of the rebel army spread the utmost con¬ 
sternation in England, and the alarm excited in London was something 
utterly indescribable. People who lived in town rushed into the country 
to be out of the way, and the inhabitants of the provinces poured into 
the metropolis as the best place for avoiding danger. The householders 
took up arms, and formed themselves into squares, crescents, lanes, 
streets, alleys, or anything. Some bolted their doors, others bolted 
themselves, and all gave unspeakable symptoms of terror and confusion. 
A camp was ordered to be formed in the suburbs, and after getting a 
large force together it was. at first resolved to turn ’em out at Turnham 
Green, but Finchley was at length decided upon as the place of 
rendezvous. 

George, who had been summoned from Germany, came blustering 
over to England, and began immediately to boast, in bad grammar and 
wretched pronunciation, that he would “ vite vor his Binglish bosses- 
sions,” and would “ meet the Bretender how or where he Pleased.” 
His personal valour was not put to the test, for Charles Edward who 
had expected instalments of friends to continue meeting him at every 
large town, had the mortification to find that the more he kept looking 
for them the more they kept on not coming; and eventually, by the 
unanimous voice of his officers, he was compelled to retreat. When he 
first heard their decision, he observed that the messenger must be 
joking, and his features wore a faint smile, but when the porter who 
brought the intelligence shook his head as much as to say, “ It’s no 
joke, your honour,” the features of the young Pretender fell, and those 
who watched him narrowly for the rest of his life, declare that he was 
never afterwards seen to smile again. 

It is impossible to recite the misfortunes of Charles Edward without 
a feeling of grave sympathy at the failure of the many noble qualities 
with which he was endowed. In April, 1746, he advanced to Culloden, 
intending to astonish the English, but he and his followers, like the 
individuals named in the song who had resolved to “ astonish the 
Browns,” finished by astonishing no one but themselves. 

The rebels advanced in two columns ; but the soldiers fell asleep, 
and we are not surprised at the fact, for any newspaper reader will 
admit that in the very idea of two columns there is something soporific 
iu the extreme. The exhausted troops fell from fatigue ; others lost 
their way; and the second column found it impossible to keep up with 
the first. This threw a damp upon the energies of even the boldest; 
and with a mental ejaculation of “ Oh ! it’s no use, ” the very best of 
Charles Edward’s adherents retired. Notwithstanding the valour of a 
corps consisting of picked men, there arose among them a feeling of 
dissatisfaction at standing unsupported, to be picked out by the artillery 
of the enemy ; and though one gallant body withdrew, playing on their 
pipes, the pipes were very soon put out by a smart shower of bullets. 
Such was the upshot of one of the most spirited enterprises that ever 
was undertaken; and its Chief, the unfortunate Charles Edward, 


CHAP. V.] 


AFFAIKS IN INDIA. 


295 


became a pauper fugitive, with scarcely clothes to cover him and there 
was quite as much necessity as nationality in the bareness of his legs, 
during the period of his wanderings. 

One of these fogs which are so accommodating in romance, but 
very rarely present themselves opportunely in history, was obliging 
enough to make its appearance for that night only on an evening of 
September, 1746, and by its kind assistance in doing the heavy business 
on that occasion, Charles Edward was enabled to pass unobserved 
through an English squadron, and cross in a vessel to Morlaix in Brit¬ 
tany. The unfortunate Pretender seems to have taken his discomfiture 
so seriously to heart, that from a fine spirited young fellow, he lapsed 
into all sorts of excess, and having taken to drinking, he fell into 
a constant reel, which formed the sole remaining vestige of his once 
enthusiastic nationality. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, walking about Florence 
in the year 1799, tumbled over an intoxicated individual, and raising 
him from the ground, had no sooner carried him towards a light, than 
he recognised the features of the young Pretender. 

Matters might possibly have gone on very peaceably with England, 
for there was nothing to fight about at home, but a dispute arose with 
the French about the respective influence of the two nations in some of 
their distant colonies. A contest for the Nabobship between some of 
the native tribes in the Carnatic, became the subject of a desperate 
quarrel between the two great European powers; one of whom supported 
the claims of Anwar ad Dien, the other promoting the pretensions of 
Chunda Sahib, and both caring, in fact, not a button about either. A 
war was nevertheless entered upon with intense vehemence, and was 
carried on for some time, with alternating success ; but, not having the 
bulletins of the day at hand, and the despatches being equally out of the 
w : ay, we are unable to give the particulars of the various contests. The 
quarrelling, though at a great distance, made at the time sufficient 
noise to be disagreeably audible at home, and preparations were made in 
the tw r o mother countries to send out large forces to thrash the children 
on both sides out of their turbulence. 

Though all this bickering had been going on for some time in the 
colonies, war had not been formally declared; but whenever an English 
or a French vessel had a chance of worrying the other, each made the 
most of the opportunity. On one occasion, two French sail of the line 
got treated very unceremoniously, and eventually captured ; when the 
government of Paris began expressing a great deal of surprise and indig¬ 
nation, and professing utter ignorance of the fact that the two powers 
were quarrelling. It is absurd to suppose that France was sincere in 
this declaration, for it could not have been understood to be “ only in 
fun,” that the French and English were knocking each other about most 
unmercifully and energetically in America. The circumstance of the 
capture to which we have referred, caused an immediate understanding 
that both parties were henceforth in earnest; and there was a mutual 
calling-in of their outstanding ambassadors. 


290 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[CHAP. VIII. 


George, however, instead of thinking about the colonies, became 
solicitous only about his “ little place ” at Hanover, and while he 
neglected therefore the American war, which became a series of mishaps, 
he threw his whole strength into the defence of the wretched spot, that 
would not have been “ had at a gift ” even by the ambitious enemy. 

Higher game was, in fact, in view; and the possession of the rock of 
Gibraltar and the island of Minorca by the English having long been 
envied, the French made up their minds to have a dash at one of them. 
Gibraltar was speedily pronounced impracticable, but Minorca seemed 
to be in a state of helplessness that tempted a resolute foe, and Fort 
St. Philip was suddenly invested. No preparations having been made 
for defence, the authorities ran about asking each other anxiously what 
was to be done, for most of the officers of the garrison were absent on 
leave; and General Blakeney, who was on the spot, though a very gallant 
fellow, was old and shaky. His spirit was consequently more effective 
as a fine piece of acting than for the purposes of actual war; and though 
the old fellow, tottering about in his dressing-gown and slippers, might 
have exclaimed “Aye, aye—let ’em come; 1 ’m ready for them,” and 
have relapsed with affecting feebleness into the sufferings of a gouty 
twinge, the spectacle, which might have been beautiful on the boards of a 
theatre, was, in the midst of a town threatened with a siege, most 
painfully ridiculous. 

Ptelief was ordered from Gibraltar; but the Governor, who was either 
very stupid or did not like the job, pretended to, or really did misun¬ 
derstand the purport of the instructions sent out to him. At home, the 
same want of energy prevailed, for the acting representative of the 
Government picked out a few ill-manned vessels, which he dignified with 
the name of a squadron ; and calling to him an admiral, since notorious 
but then unknown, observed to him, “Here, Byng; you had better 
take this force, and go and see what they want at Fort St. Philip.” 
Admiral Byng did not at all like the job, and began to hesitate about 
undertaking it; but being told to call at Gibraltar for fresh troops, he 
plucked up sufficient pluck for the enterprise. 

On his arrival at Gibraltar, the Governor pretended not to know 
what Byng had come about; and when asked for troops, merely 
exclaimed, “ Nonsense, nonsense ; there’s some mistake. I can’t part 
with my troops, for I’m as nervous as an old aspen myself, with the 
very little protection that is left to me.” Byng became more dis¬ 
heartened than ever by the refusal of the expected aid, and went 
grumbling away, muttering, “ Well! they ’ll oee ; I know how it will 
end;” and giving vent to other ejaculations of a similarly unseaman-like 
character. He wrote to the Lords of the Admiralty, announcing the 
certainty of his making a mess of it; and in speaking of the refusal of 
troops at Gibraltar, he in vulgar but forcible language “ gave it the 
Governor.” Having made up his mind to a failure, it was not very 
difficult to accomplish the object; and having gone to look at Fort 
St. Philip, he merely played, as it were, a game at stare-cap with the 


CHAP. V.] 


EXECUTION OF ADMIRAL BYNG. 


297 


sentinel on the look-out, but did not perform a single operation with a 
view to its protection. In due course the French fleet hove in sight, 
and it was expected that a brilliant action would have taken place, for 
both squadrons immediately began manoeuvring most beautifully until 
each had got into the line of battle. A little harmless cannonading 
had commenced by way of overture to the anticipated work, when the 
French slowly retired, and the English slowly following, they disappeared 
together in the most harmless and indeed almost friendly manner, to 
the astonishment of poor old Blakeney, wdio watched them as long as 
the strength of his glasses 'would allow of his doing so. Nothing could 
have been more orderly than the retreat on both sides ; and indeed it 
has been suggested by an old offender, who very naturally refuses to 
give his name—“ That if the affair we have described deserves to be 
called a battle at all, the Battle of Co-runner ”—mark the deceptive 
spelling in the last syllable'—“ would be a good name for it.” 

The rage of the English, whose boast it had been to rule the waves, 
and never, never, never to be slaves, may be conceived at the arrival of 
the intelligence of Byng’s bungle. The Government was the first object 
of the popular fury ; but the ministers were adroit enough to turn the 
indignation of the people against the unfortunate admiral. Byng was, 
no doubt, bad enough, though he was not the only guilty party ; but his 
fellow-culprits, taking a lesson from the pickpockets, who were the first 
to raise after their accomplice the cry of ‘‘Stop thief,” began to denounce 
the nautical delinquent with excessive vehemence. They recalled him 
from his command, ordered him to Greenwich, and instead of allowing 
him to partake in the amusements of the place, they imprisoned him 
with the intimation that “ None but the brave deserved the fair.” IClie 
next step w r as to bring him before a Court-martial on a charge of cow r ardice 
and disobedience to orders, when, being found guilty, he was condemned 
to be shot, and underwent at Portsmouth, on the 14th of March, 1757, 
this rather redundant punishment. We are anxious to do what we can 
in the way of sympathy for poor Byng, particularly after the little we 
find that can be of any use to him in the pages of preceding historians. 
They seem disposed to join in the cruel shout of “ Sarve him right,” 
which a vulgar and unthinking posterity has raised to hoot the memory 
of this unfortunate officer. We are induced to look at him as a gentle¬ 
man who merely was unfit for the profession he had chosen, and as his 
was not an uncommon case, we think it hard to look upon it with uncorrn 
mon severity. It is perhaps an odd coincidence, that an officer more 
eager for the fray than Byng, had urged the latter to enter into the 
action with the French, when the dry observation “ I ’ll be shot if I do,” 
was the only reply of the Admiral. It cannot fail to strike the philo¬ 
sophic observer at this distance of time, that Byng, when saying “I ’ll 
be shot if I do ”—that is, if he ever said as much—might have been 
profitably given to understand that he would be shot if he didn't. It 
has been put forth as a consolatory reflection that the naval service in 
general profited by this melancholy execution of poor Byng; but though 


298 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


[BOOK VIII. 


as a general rule, what is desirable for the goose is equally advantageous 
to the gander, we cannot in this instance agree that what was good for 
the men was at the same time good for the admiral. 

The treatment of poor Byng presents a very humiliating picture of 
the want of firmness shown by the Court-martial that tried, the ministers 
that abandoned, and the king that would not pardon him. Everybody 
affected a strong desire to see him saved, but nobody had the resolution 
to take the responsibility of saving him. His sometimes merciless 
Majesty, the mob, formed in reality the executioners of poor Byng, for 
the authorities were all afraid of risking their popularity by being in¬ 
strumental to his pardon. The members of the Court-martial, by their 
verdict, expressly implored the Lords of the Admiralty to recommend 
him to the mercy of the Crown, but there was a general feeling of “It’s 
no business of mine,” and to this heartless apathy poor Byng was 
eventually sacrificed. Never was there a better illustration of the hare 
with many friends, though not even a hair-breadth escape was permitted 
to the unfortunate admiral. Never was a gentleman killed under such 
an accumulation of kindness as Byng, and indeed he was, figuratively 
speaking, bowed out of existence with so many complimentary and sym¬ 
pathetic expressions, that but for the stubborn reality of the leaden 
bullets he might have fancied that the guns discharged at him were 
intended rather in the nature of a salute than as a capital punishment. 


CHAP. VI.J 


GEORGE THE SECOND. 


299 


CHAPTER THE SIXTH. 

GEORGE THE SECOND (CONCLUDED). 

Discomfiture still attended the English in America, and though 
fresh troops with fresh leaders were sent off to wipe out the disgrace, 
they only got wiped out themselves in a most unceremonious manner. 
On the continent of Europe, too, poor Britannia was at a sad discount ; 
for Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Russia had all thrown themselves into 
the arms of France, for the purpose of counteracting the influence of the 
arms of England. It was only in Indian ink that the creditable part of 
our country’s annals belonging to this period should be written, for in 
India alone were any of our achievements entitled to some of those 
epithets we are so fond of bestowing on our own actions. The British 
Lion had, in fact, retired from the Continent to the Himalaya moun¬ 
tains, where he remained on the majestic prowl as the protector of 
British interests. 

There w r as a natural jealousy between England and France on the 
subject of their relative influence in that country, whose native princes 
were honoured by the protection of both, and who were always mulcted 
of a slice of their dominions by way of costs, for the expense incurred in 
the alleged support of their interests. If the aggressor of one of the 
Indian rulers happened to succeed, he took at once what he had been 
fighting for ; while if a defender of some unhappy rajah or nabob was 
victorious, the native prince was made to pay all the same for the pro¬ 
tection afforded him. 

By this sort of assistance rendered to the Indians, the English and 
French had succeeded in helping themselves to a good share of territory, 
and while the former had already obtained possession of Calcutta and 
.Madras, the latter had got at Pondicherry, a very respectable establish¬ 
ment under Monsieur Duplex, whose duplicity was, of course, remark¬ 
able. By espousing the causes of a set of quarrelsome nabobs, 
Soubahdars, and other small fry, who had taken advantage of the death 
of Nizam-ul-Mulk to raise a contest for the throne of the Deccan, the 
English and the French had found plenty of excuses for quarrelling, 
and we are compelled to confess that in this part of the world the 
j Gallic cock had good reason for crowing over the British bull-dog. 

Things might have continued in this unsatisfactory condition, had not 
Captain Clive, a civilian in the Company’s service, exchanged a pen for 
a sword—a piece of barter that turned out extremely fortunate for 
English interests. With a small body of troops he took the Citadel of 
Arcot, nabbed the Nabob, and prevented Duplex from setting up a 
creature of his own—a disagreeable Indian creature—in that capacity. 
After this achievement, Clive had gone home for his health, and was 


300 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[ROOK VITI 


drinking every morning a quantity of Clive’s tea, when in 1755 he 
accepted a colonelcy, and returned to the scene of his former glories. 
Here, he was rendered very angry by a pirate of the name of 
Angria, whom however he quickly subdued : and lie had heard from 
Madras that a mad-rascal named Suraja Dowlar was in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Calcutta, and was threatening to settle the settlement. This 
news came like a thunder-clap on Clive, who determined on giving 
Dowlar such a dose as he would not easily forget; and he commenced 
by conveying secretly to one of his officers, Meer Jaffier—a mere 
nobody—an offer of the throne. The scheme completely succeeded, 
and Meer Jaffier became the tool, or rather the spade, for giving a 
dig at poor Dowlar, who fell to the ground very speedily. 

Matters had now happily taken a favourable turn, and in America 
Wolfe distinguished himself, but unfortunately extinguished himself 
also at the siege of Quebec; for he died in the moment of victory. 

Things were mending very perceptibly in all directions, and English 
honour, which had been for some time at an unusual discount, was once 
more looking up, when the king, who had been speculating on the rise, 
was suddenly deprived of all chance of sharing in its advantages. He 
had made his usual hearty breakfast of chocolate, new-laid eggs, 
devilled kidneys, tea-cake, red herrings, and milk from the cow, when, 
as he was preparing to take a walk in Kensington Gardens, he suddenly 
expired, on the 25th of October, 1760. George II. was in his 77th 
year, and the 34th of his reign, during the whole of which he had 
been a Hanoverian at heart, and he had nothing English about him, 
except the money. His manners were rather impatient and over¬ 
bearing, for he had not a courteous style of speaking; and it was said 
at the time, that “ no one could accuse him of being mealy-mouthed; 
for though he was not civil spoken, he was temperate in his living, and 
thus the term mealy-mouthed could in no sense be applied to him.” 

In forming an estimate of the characters of the sovereigns who have 
come before us for review, we have found ourselves fortunate in pos¬ 
sessing an independent judgment of our own ; for if we had been guided 
by precedent, we should have been puzzled to know what to think of 
the different kings and queens, all of whom have had witnesses on both 
sides, to censure and to praise with a want of unanimity that is realty 
wonderful. George II. has furnished a subject for this division of 
opinion, and his eulogist has complimented him rather oddly on his old 
age, a compliment that might as well be paid to an old hat, an ancient 
pun, a venerable bead, or any other article that has arrived at a condition 
of antiquity. The reasons given by his panegyrist for praising him are 
few and insignificant on the whole, though his severer critic founds his 
strictures on a tolerably substantial basis. We learn from this authority 
that George II. was ignorant, stingy, stupid, ill-tempered, and obstinate. 
His predilection for Hanover has, we think, been unjustly censured ; 
for there is nothing very discreditable, after all, in a love for one's own 
birth-place, though it may be what is termed a beggarly hole in the 


CHAP. VI.1 CHARACTER OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 301 

strong language of detraction. The native of Lambeth has been known, 
to pine with a sort of rnal da pays after the cherished sheds and shambles 
of the New Cut, and we have heard the plaintive accents of “ Home, 
sweet Home,” issuing from the lips of the exiled sons and daughters of 
Houndsditch. If George II. was still faithful in his love for Hanover, 
in spite of the superior attractions of England, we may question his 
baste, but we must admire his constancy; which presents an honourable 
contrast to young Love’s notorious desertion of the coal and potato 
shed, when Poverty, in the shape of a man in possession, stepped over 
the doorway 


VOL. II. 


X 


COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


[BOOK VIII. 


302 


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. 

ON THE CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT AND LAWS, NATIONAL INDUSTRY, 

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, FINE ARTS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION 

OF THE PEOPLE. 

We feel that the length of the above heading to this, the concluding 
chapter of the volume, will be sufficient to provoke the legal reader 
into making a charge for “ perusing title and examining samebut we 
promise to make our clauses as pertinent as the magnet to the loadstone. 
Having already, in the course of preceding chapters, touched upon 
most of the subjects noticed in the abstract of title to which we allude, 
it will be unnecessary to hold the reader very long by the button; but 
perceiving him getting ready to run away, as the curtain falls upon 
George II., we cannot help exclaiming, “ Stop a minute or two, we’ve 
got just half-a-dozen more words to say to you ! ” 

The Constitution is the first topic on which we have still to touch, 
and that is a theme which every true patriot loves to dwell upon. We 
have no hesitation in saying that our beloved country must have the 
constitution of a horse, to have gone through one-half the severe trials 
it has experienced. It is apparently peculiar to the soil; for, though 
the prescription for making it up has been given to other nations, and 
has been accurately prepared by some of the ablest political druggists, 
it has never been swallowed abroad, or, if rammed down the throats of 
rulers or people, it does not seem to have agreed very well with either 
one or the other. The British Constitution is a thing sui generis, like 
the delicious bun of Chelsea, the acknowledged brick of Bath, and the 
recognised toffey of Everton. It is vain for other nations to hope that 
they may have their own materials made up into the pattern they so 
much admire; for the attempt would be quite as abortive, and almost 
as unwise, as the effort to make a genuine Romford stove away from 
Romford, Epsom salts half a mile out of Epsom, Windsor soap beyond 
the walls of Windsor, and the genuine Brighton rock anywhere in 
the world but in the very heart of Brighton. The British Constitution 
must be like home-brewed beer, and even more than that, it must be 
enjoyed where it is brewed; or, in other words—to draw off one more 
figure from the cask,—it must be “drunk on the premises.” The most 
eloquent of foreign nations cannot come and fetch it, as it were, in their 
own jugs, however they may foam and froth about it in their own mugs 
when they carry it in their mouths by making it the subject of their 
speeches. 

The durability of the British Constitution, its fitness for wear and 
tear, has been exemplified in the wonderful manner in which it has 
survived the rubs that from the . hands of party it has experienced 


CHAP. VII.] MANNEKS, CUSTOMS. ETC., OF THE PEOPLE. 303 

This reflection naturally brings into our mind the terms Whig and 
Tory, into which politicians were divided, until modern statesmanship 
introduced us to a new class of principles, that may be called, concisely 
and comprehensively, the Conservative-Whig-Radical. 

The words Whig and Tory came into use, and into abuse also, about 
the year 1679, and their origin has been traced with wonderful 
ingenuity, for the derivation has nothing to do with the derivative, 
according to these ingenious speculations ; and if we may trust Roger 
North—a little too far north for us, by-the-bye—Tory is allied to 
Tantivy, without the smallest apparent reason for the relationship. It 
would, perhaps, save a great deal of trouble to keep a register of 
philological next-of-kin; and we are sure that if something a little nearer 
than Tantivy could come forward to claim affinity with Tory, the noun, 
verb, or any other part of speech it might chance to be, would “ hear of 
something to its advantage.” The word Whig seems to be utterly 
without orthographical heirs-at-law, for no attempt has been made to 
get at its pedigree. 

National Industry advanced materially during the period we have just 
described, and among other things, the glass, which had been hitherto 
imported chiefly from France, began to be seen through by the English 
manufacturer. 

Literature and the Arts flourished in the reigns we have lately gone 
through; and Architecture took very high ground, or indeed any ground 
it could get, for the execution of its projects. 

Periodical Literature rose in great brilliancy at about the time we have 
described, and the union of such writers as Steele, Addison, and Swift, 
in one little paper, must have formed a combination that should have 
been kept back until the days of advertising vans and gigantic posting- 
bills, enabling the parties interested to make the most of the “ Concen¬ 
tration of talent,” which might have been the cry of every dead wall in 
the Metropolis. 

The manners and customs of the period were not particularly attrac¬ 
tive, being, under the two Georges at least, far more German than 
Germane to our English notions of refinement. In dress, there was 
somewhat of an approach to the costume of our own days; and the 
scarcity of hair on the head began to be supplied by that friend of man, 
the horse, from whom the barrister has since prayed a tales to furnish 
the wig, which is considered essential to his forensic dignity. 

The military costume of the time of George II. is chiefly remarkable 
for the hats worn by the soldiers, which were something in appearance 
between the fool's cap and the bishop’s mitre, as we find from one of 
Hogarth’s drawings. 

The condition of the people was not very enviable in the seventeenth 
or even the eighteenth centuries; and indeed all classes were very 
ill-conditioned; for morality was lax, education was limited, poverty 
was abundant, extravagance was very common, and wealth extremely 
insolent 


a 04 . . COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [BOOK VIII. 

Such being the state of the people and the country at this period, we 
cannot be sorry to get out of their company, though it is not without 
some regret that we bid farewell for a time to our History. In the 
course of this work we have rowed in the same galley with Ctesar, stood 
up to our ankles in sea-water with Canute, run after the Mussulman’s 
daughter with Gilbert a Beckett, wielded a battle-axe with Richard 
on the field of Bosworth, smoked a pipe and eaten a potato with Sir 
Walter Raleigh, danced with Sir Christopher Hatton on Clerkenwell 
Green, and sailed round the bay that bears his name with honest 
Bill Baffin : all these adventures have we enjoyed in imagination, that 
beau ideal of a railway, with nothing to pay and no fear of accidents. 

We have at length arrived at a station, where we stop for the purpose 
of refreshment; but we hope to resume our journey, and proceed in the 
ordinary train, touching by the way at 
terminus we have set our eye upon. 


all stations, high and low, to the 


THE END. 


BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WIIITEFRIARS. 












































































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